John Burns FRS MIF (13 November 1775 – 18 June 1850) was a Scottish surgeon.John Burns
Glasgow University

Life

He was the eldest son of Elizabeth Stevenson and Rev. John Burns, who was the minister of the

Barony Church Barony Hall, also known as Barony Church, is a red sandstone Victorian neo-Gothic-style building on Castle Street in the Townhead area of Glasgow, Scotland, near Glasgow Cathedral, Glasgow Royal Infirmary and the city's oldest surviving ho ...

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

. Burns became a visiting surgeon at

Glasgow Royal Infirmary The Glasgow Royal Infirmary (GRI) is a large teaching hospital. With a capacity of around 1,000 beds, the hospital campus covers an area of around , and straddles the Townhead and Dennistoun districts on the north-eastern fringe of the city cen ...

and the proprietor of the College Street medical school. He was suspected in robbing graves to provide cadavres for dissecting studies. In 1799, he became Professor of Anatomy and Theory at

Anderson's University The University of Strathclyde ( gd, Oilthigh Shrath Chluaidh) is a public research university located in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded in 1796 as the Andersonian Institute, it is Glasgow's second-oldest university, having received its royal chart ...

, where he published several text books for students and became an international authority on abortion and midwifery. In 1815 he was appointed the first Regius Professor of Surgery at the

University of Glasgow , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

. He lived at 5

Blythswood Square Blythswood Square is the Georgian square on Blythswood Hill in the heart of the City of Glasgow, Scotland. The square is part of the 'Magnificent New Town of Blythswood' built in the 1800s on the rising empty ground west of a very new Buchana ...

in the north of the city. Burns, the brother of two senior figures in the MacBrayne's and Cunard

shipping Freight transport, also referred as ''Freight Forwarding'', is the physical process of transporting Commodity, commodities and merchandise goods and cargo. The term shipping originally referred to transport by sea but in American English, it h ...

businesses, was among fifty people who died when the G & J Burns paddle steamship ''Orion'' sank off

Portpatrick Portpatrick is a village and civil parish in the historical county of Wigtownshire, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. It is located on the west coast of the Rhins of Galloway. The parish is about in length and in breadth, covering . History ...

in June 1850 on its way from Liverpool to Glasgow.Clyde Shipwrecks by Peter Moir and Ian Crawford (1997)

Publications

*Principles of Midwifery (1809) *Principles of Christian Philosophy *Christian Fragments

Family

In 1801 he married Isabella Duncan, daughter of Rev. John Duncan of Alva and had four children. Their first child, John (born 1806) was a member of the

78th Highlanders The 78th (Highlanders) Regiment of Foot was a Highland Infantry Regiment of the Line, raised in 1793. Under the Childers Reforms it amalgamated with 72nd Regiment, Duke of Albany's Own Highlanders to form the Seaforth Highlanders in 1881. Hi ...

and later Lieutenant-Colonel of the 2nd Royals and died in service at the Cape in 1853, unmarried. Their second son, Allan (born 1819), was a physician and died in 1843 by

typhoid fever Typhoid fever, also known as typhoid, is a disease caused by '' Salmonella'' serotype Typhi bacteria. Symptoms vary from mild to severe, and usually begin six to 30 days after exposure. Often there is a gradual onset of a high fever over several ...

which he caught from a patient.

References

* * The Old Country Houses of the Old Glasgow Gentry, John Guthrie Smith and John Oswald Mitchell, 1878
This title on Glasgow Digital Library
1775 births 1850 deaths Fellows of the Royal Society Deaths due to shipwreck at sea Scottish surgeons Academics of the University of Glasgow Scottish religious writers Scottish medical writers {{Scotland-med-bio-stub