McCloskey has made major contributions in two fields: the protective and regulatory functions of arterial chemoreceptors in influencing breathing and the circulation; and the relative roles of different skeletomuscular sense organs in awareness of limb position and movement, and in the sense of effort in voluntary actions. In both these series of researches, he has shown outstanding originality, ingenuity and experimental skill and has achieved substantial advances not only in basic understanding, but in providing a practical basis for management of disorders, such as dangerous cardiac arrhythmias. McCloskey's research is internationally recognised as outstanding. His claim to the Fellowship rests not only on the importance of his discoveries, but especially on the originality, creativity and elegant simplicity of the experimental approaches he has devised.