James Inglis (physician)
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James Inglis (1813-1851) was a Scottish medical doctor, writer and geologist.
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]