James Inglis (physician)

Dr. James Inglis, 1844 Portrait by David Octavius Hill, National Portrait Gallery, London

James Inglis (1813-1851) was a Scottish physician, author and geologist.

Early life

James Inglis was born in Glasgow on 6 September 1813,[1] the son of James Inglis, a merchant and his wife, Charlotte Spalding, the daughter of Charles Spalding, improver of the diving bell. Through his mother, Inglis was a member of the Smalls of Dirnanean, a Perthshire family that included direct ancestor, James Small, factor of the forfeited Robertson estates after Culloden.

After early schooling in Musselburgh, Inglis became a student at the University of Edinburgh. While a student in Edinburgh, he received the Hope prize for chemistry for his paper, Essay on iodine and bromine.[2] His mentor during this time was Sir George Ballingall.[3] Receiving his medical degree in 1834, he became a member of the Royal College of Physicians of England in that same year.[3]

Medical career

Inglis set up practice at Castle Douglas.[2] In 1835, he performed a brilliant home operation on gunshot victim, Maria Kennedy, removing the bullet from behind her left frontal bone.[2] She had been shot by Kirkcudbright Stewart-officer Robert Blair.[2] The patient survived and Inglis provided detailed testimony of the operation and the condition of the patient at the trial.[2]

In 1837 he moved to the Ripon Public Dispensary. Then in 1838, while at Ripon, Inglis published his Treatise of English Bronchocele.[2] The work documented the epidemiology of goitre, using iodine treatment research Inglis had accumulated in both Scotland and England.[2]

In 1838, Inglis moved his practice to Halifax, West Yorkshire.[2]

Other pursuits

Pursuing a lifelong passion for chemistry and geology, Inglis became the curator for the Halifax Literary & Philosophical Society.[3] In 1843, while studying the Halifax coal beds, he discovered a new species of sea lily that he named Nautilus Rawsoni,[4] which he named after Christopher Rawson,[5] the founder of the Halifax Literary & Philosophical Society.[6]

Interested in phrenology, Inglis researched the brain of Eugene Aram, an infamous English murderer.[2]

Inglis was a Freemason and a past Master of the Yorkshire Lodge in Halifax.[7]

Personal life

Inglis married Louisa Rawson (ca. 1826-1909), the daughter of Jeremiah Rawson, Esq., on 3 May 1842 at St. John the Baptist Church in Halifax.[8] The couple had the following children:

  • Charlotte Hannah Louise Inglis (1843-1875), married Priestly Haigh Norris[9]
  • Major James Argyll Spalding Inglis (1848-1883), British District Commissioner of Nicosia, 1882-1883[10]
  • Charles John Inglis (b. 1850), a solicitor

A great-granddaughter of Inglis was Surrealist performance artist Sheila Legge. A brother-in-law of Inglis, and a fellow physician, was Dr. Charles Ransford.[2]

Inglis died at Halifax on 9 March 1851.[7] His sister, St. Clair Ransford, attributed his early death to cardiac arrest, likely due to several bouts of rheumatic fever as a young man.[2] Dr. Inglis and his wife were buried in Holy Trinity Churchyard in Halifax,[7] which unfortunately has been converted into a car park.

References

  1. ^ Inglis, James. Scotland, Select Births and Baptisms, 1564-1950. Ancestry.com. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wilson, G. M. (14 April 1973). "Medical History, Early Photography, Goitre, and James Inglis". British Medical Journal. 2 (5858): 104–105. doi:10.1136/bmj.2.5858.104. PMC 1589083. PMID 4573307.
  3. ^ a b c Boase, Frederic (1897). Modern English Biography: I-Q. Great Britain: Netherton and Worth. p. 11.
  4. ^ Inglis, James (1905). "Invertebrates, Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological Society, Volume 15". Google Books. Yorkshire Geological Society. p. 106. Retrieved 22 July 2018.
  5. ^ Roth, Henry Ling (1906). The Yorkshire Coiners, 1767-1783: And Notes on Old and Prehistoric Halifax. United Kingdom: F. King & Sons. pp. 258. Halifax Literary & Philosophical Society rawson.
  6. ^ Yorkshire Geological and Polytechnic Society (1889). Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological and Polytechnic Society, Volume 10. England: Yorkshire Geological and Polytechnic Society. pp. 191–192.
  7. ^ a b c Inglis, James (1851). "Freemasons' Quarterly Magazine, Volume 2, Bro. G. Routledge & Company, 1851". Freemasons' Quarterly Magazine. 2 – via Google Books.
  8. ^ Inglis, James; Rawson, Louisa (3 May 1842). West Yorkshire, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1813-1935. Parish of Halifax, York, England: Ancestry.com. p. 175.
  9. ^ Wells, J. F. (1876). British Architect. United Kingdom: The British Architect Company. p. 305.
  10. ^ Hook, Gail Ruth (2015). Protectorate Cyprus: British Imperial Power Before WWI. London and New York: I.B.Tauris. p. 86. ISBN 9781780761145.