leishman was born in glasgow and attended westminster school and the university of glasgow and entered the royal army medical corps. he served in india, where he did research on enteric fever and kala-azar. he returned to the united kingdom and was stationed at the victoria hospital in netley in 1897. in 1900 he was made assistant professor of pathology in the army medical school, and described a method of staining blood for malaria and other parasites—a modification and simplification of the existing romanowsky method using a compound of methylene blue and eosin, which became known as leishman's stain.