John Brown Buist, M.D.(Edin.), B.Sc.(Edin.), F.R.C.P.Ed., F.R.S.Ed. (1846-1915) : an acknowledgment of his early contributions to the bacteriology of variola and vaccinia / by T.J. Mackie and C.E. van Rooyen.

  • Mackie, T. J. (Thomas Jones), 1888-1955.
Date:
[1937]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: John Brown Buist, M.D.(Edin.), B.Sc.(Edin.), F.R.C.P.Ed., F.R.S.Ed. (1846-1915) : an acknowledgment of his early contributions to the bacteriology of variola and vaccinia / by T.J. Mackie and C.E. van Rooyen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    5/12 (page 73)
    From information very cordially given by Mrs J. B. Buist of Edinburgh, and with the kind help of Dr Robert Thin and Mr T. H. Graham of the Royal College of Physicians, we have been enabled to recount something of Buist’s career and scientific work. John Brown Buist was a native of Fife, having been born at Abdie on 4th May 1846, the son of James Buist, farmer, of Braeside, Abdie, near Newburgh. He was a pupil at the Edinburgh Institution from 1858 till he entered the University of Edinburgh in 1862 as a medical student. Among his teachers at the University were Lyon Playfair (Chemistry), James Spence (Surgery) and James Young Simpson (Mid¬ wifery). He graduated M.B. in 1867 and immediately after qualification served as House Surgeon in the North Lonsdale Hospital at Barrow-in-Furness where he later commenced practice and held the appointments of Surgeon to the North Lonsdale Hospital and Medical Superintendent of the Smallpox Hospital. Thus his early experiences brought him into close professional contact with smallpox, the aetiology and prevention of which became a dominant interest in his professional life. In 1870 he graduated M.D. at Edinburgh University, his thesis being on “ Clinical Observations in Antiseptic Surgery.” Buist returned to Edinburgh in 1877 and started private practice there, receiving the appointment of Physician to the Fountain- bridge Dispensary, and in 1879 he was recognised as Lecturer in General Pathology in the School of Medicine of the Royal Colleges. He was admitted a Member of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in 1878 and elected a Fellow in 1879. In 1886 he became a teacher in vaccination under the Local Government Board for Scotland and worked and taught at the Western Dispensary, the Livingstone Dispensary, Marshall Street and New Town Dispensaries. It is significant of his keen interest in medical science that at the age of fifty-six he took the degree of B.Sc. in Public Health. He was a member of the Edinburgh Obstetrical Society and the Medico- Chirurgical Society of Edinburgh, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, and a Burgess and Guild Brother of Edinburgh. He is still survived by his second wife, Helen Hutchison. He had no family. At the age of sixty-nine he died suddenly while engaged in professional work. His remains were interred in the Dean Cemetery, Edinburgh.