David Middleton Greig FRSE FRCSE LLD TD (1864 - 4 May 1936) was a Scottish surgeon who worked for most of his career at Dundee Royal Infirmary. He developed an interest in diseases of bone and came to be regarded as an international authority on the subject. He wrote numerous papers on skeletal abnormalities and Greig cephalopolysyndactyly syndrome (first described in 1926) is named after him. [1] Over the course of his career he amassed a large collection of skulls demonstrating various bony abnormalities. After retiring from surgical practice he became conservator of the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh at Surgeons' Hall. He donated 250 skulls to Surgeons' Hall Museum, where some remain on display as part of the Greig Collection. [2]
Greig was born at 140 Nethergate in Dundee [3] in 1864 , son of Dr David Greig a Dundee general practitioner and descendant of a long line of medical practitioners. [2] He first studied medicine at the University of St Andrews but then moved to the University of Edinburgh where he graduated MB CM in 1885. [4]
After a period working with his father as a GP in Dundee, he worked as a doctor at the Royal Asylum in Perth. From here he moved to the Baldovan Institute for Imbecile Children near Dundee. After three years serving as a military surgeon in India he returned to Scotland to take a post at Dundee Royal Infirmary (DRI). [4] In 1899, at the onset of the Boer War he served under General Redvers Buller in Natal. He returned to Dundee in 1902 at the end of the war. [5] He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and was appointed to the surgical staff of DRI and lecturer in surgery at the University of St Andrews. [2]
From an early stage in his career he became an avid collector of pathological specimens and particularly of those relating to diseases and abnormalities of the skeleton. He became a regular contributor to the anatomical and surgical literature, many of his papers dealing with rare diseases and developmental abnormalities. [2]
In 1911 he was living at 25 South Tay Street in Dundee, [6] a three storey and basement Georgian terraced townhouse.
On retiring from surgical practice he became the full time Conservator of the Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, a post he held for 15 years. During this time he arranged for descriptions of every specimen in the collection, created a new museum catalogue based on a much improved indexing system. He also supervised the re-mounting a large proportion of the pathological specimens. [2]
In 1925 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Anderson Gray McKendrick, James Hartley Ashworth, Arthur Robinson and Sir Harold Stiles. [7]
John Abercrombie was a Scottish physician, author, philosopher and philanthropist. His Edinburgh practice became one of the most successful medical practices in Scotland. The Chambers Biographical Dictionary says of him that after James Gregory's death, he was "recognized as the first consulting physician in Scotland". As surgeon to The Royal Public Dispensary and the New Town Dispensary he provided free medical care for the poor of the town and taught medical students and apprentices. He published extensively on medical topics and latterly on metaphysics morality and religion. A devout Christian he gave financial support to missionary work. Abercrombie was awarded the honorary degree of MD from the University of Oxford, was elected Rector of Marischal College and University, Aberdeen and appointed Physician to the King in Scotland.
Pathology is the study of the causes and effects of disease or injury. The word pathology also refers to the study of disease in general, incorporating a wide range of biology research fields and medical practices. However, when used in the context of modern medical treatment, the term is often used in a narrower fashion to refer to processes and tests that fall within the contemporary medical field of "general pathology", an area which includes a number of distinct but inter-related medical specialties that diagnose disease, mostly through analysis of tissue and human cell samples. Idiomatically, "a pathology" may also refer to the predicted or actual progression of particular diseases, and the affix pathy is sometimes used to indicate a state of disease in cases of both physical ailment and psychological conditions. A physician practicing pathology is called a pathologist.
Sir James Paget, 1st Baronet FRS HFRSE was an English surgeon and pathologist who is best remembered for naming Paget's disease and who is considered, together with Rudolf Virchow, as one of the founders of scientific medical pathology. His famous works included Lectures on Tumours (1851) and Lectures on Surgical Pathology (1853). There are several medical conditions which were described by, and later named after, Paget:
Sir William Macewen, was a Scottish surgeon. He was a pioneer in modern brain surgery, considered the father of neurosurgery and contributed to the development of bone graft surgery, the surgical treatment of hernia and of pneumonectomy.
James Syme was a pioneering Scottish surgeon.
John Goodsir was a Scottish anatomist and a pioneer in the formulation of cell theory.
The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (RCSEd) is a professional organisation of surgeons. The College has seven active faculties, covering a broad spectrum of surgical, dental, and other medical practices. Its main campus is located on Nicolson Street, Edinburgh, within the Surgeons' Hall, designed by William Henry Playfair, and adjoining buildings. The main campus includes a skills laboratory, the Surgeons' Hall Museums, a medical and surgical library, and a hotel. A second office was opened in Birmingham (UK) in 2014 and an international office opened in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 2018.
Sir John Fraser, 1st Baronet, was Regius Professor of Clinical Surgery at Edinburgh University from 1925 to 1944 and served as principal of the University of Edinburgh from 1944 to 1947.
Sir John Struthers MD FRCSE FRSE was the first Regius Professor of Anatomy at the University of Aberdeen. He was a dynamic teacher and administrator, transforming the status of the institutions in which he worked. He was equally passionate about anatomy, enthusiastically seeking out and dissecting the largest and finest specimens, including whales, and troubling his colleagues with his single-minded quest for money and space for his collection. His collection was donated to Surgeon's Hall in Edinburgh.
Surgeons' Hall in Edinburgh, Scotland, is the headquarters of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (RCSEd). It houses the Surgeons' Hall Museum, and the library and archive of the RCSEd. The present Surgeons' Hall was designed by William Henry Playfair and completed in 1832, and is a category A listed building.
Sir Robert Muir, FRS, FRSE, FRCP, FRCPE, FRFPSG was a Scottish physician and pathologist who carried out pioneering work in immunology, and was one of the leading figures in medical research in Glasgow in the early 20th century.
Dundee Royal Infirmary, often shortened to DRI, was a major teaching hospital in Dundee, Scotland. Until the opening of Ninewells Hospital in 1974, Dundee Royal Infirmary was Dundee's main hospital. It was closed in 1998, after 200 years of operation.
John Chalmers is a Scottish orthopaedic surgeon.
Sir Harold Jalland Stiles was an English surgeon who was known for his research into cancer and tuberculosis and for treatment of nerve injuries.
Thomas Annandale, FRCS FRSE (1838–1907) was a Scottish surgeon who conducted the first repair of the meniscus and the first successful removal of an acoustic neuroma, and introduced the pre-peritoneal approach to inguinal hernia repair. He served as Regius Professor of Clinical Surgery at the University of Edinburgh. His collection of anatomical specimens was donated to the Surgeon's Hall in Edinburgh and is now known as the Thomas Annandale Collection.
Sir Henry Wade PRCSE FRSE DSO CMG was a Scottish military and urological surgeon. He was elected president of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1935. His collection of anatomical specimens was donated to Surgeon's Hall in Edinburgh and is known as the Henry Wade Collection.
Charles Walker Cathcart, CBE, MB CM, FRCSEd, FRCSE was a Scottish surgeon who worked for most of his career at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh (RIE). As a young man he had represented Scotland at rugby on three occasions. During the First World War he jointly published an account of the value of sphagnum moss as a wound dressing which led to its widespread use by the British Army for that purpose.
Arthur Logan Turner FRCSEd FRSE LLD was a Scottish surgeon, who specialised in diseases of ear, nose and throat (ENT) and was one of the first surgeons to work at the purpose-built ENT Pavilion at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. During his surgical career he published a series of clinical papers and wrote a textbook of ENT surgery which proved popular around the world and ran to several editions. After retiring from surgical practice he pursued his interest in the history of medicine writing a biography of his father and histories of the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and the University of Edinburgh. As his father had been before him, he was elected President of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. His collection of pathological specimens was donated to Surgeon's Hall Museum in Edinburgh..
Alexander Miles MD, LL.D, FRCSEd was a Scottish surgeon who worked at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. He was known for the quality of his surgical teaching, for his role as a medical journal editor and as the author of popular surgical textbooks and books on surgical history. He was elected President of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.
Extramural medical education in Edinburgh began over 200 years before the university medical faculty was founded in 1726 and extramural teaching continued thereafter for a further 200 years. Extramural is academic education which is conducted outside a university. In the early 16th century it was under the auspices of the Incorporation of Surgeons of Edinburgh (RCSEd) and continued after the Faculty of Medicine was established by the University of Edinburgh in 1726. Throughout the late 18th and 19th centuries the demand for extramural medical teaching increased as Edinburgh's reputation as a centre for medical education grew. Instruction was carried out by individual teachers, by groups of teachers and, by the end of the 19th century, by private medical schools in the city. Together these comprised the Edinburgh Extramural School of Medicine. From 1896 many of the schools were incorporated into the Medical School of the Royal Colleges of Edinburgh under the aegis of the RCSEd and the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (RCPE) and based at Surgeons' Hall. Extramural undergraduate medical education in Edinburgh stopped in 1948 with the closure of the Royal Colleges' Medical School following the Goodenough Report which recommended that all undergraduate medical education in the UK should be carried out by universities.