John Robert Hume
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John Robert Hume (c. 1781–1857) was a Scottish surgeon and physician. He is cited as an example of a 19th-century medical career that arrived at a high position in the profession, without early qualifications.[1]
Born in Renfrewshire in 1781 or 1782, he was the son of Joseph Hume, a medical practitioner at Hamilton. He studied medicine at Glasgow in 1795, 1798, and at Edinburgh in 1796–7. He entered the medical service of the army as a hospital mate, was in Holland in 1799, and joined the 92nd Regiment of Foot as assistant surgeon in 1800. He was in Egypt in 1801.[2][3][4] In that campaign he served as surgeon on HMS Ceres.[5] Some of his journals for his visit to Cyprus (including Larnaka and Limassol) were printed.[6]
Hume served in the Walcheren Expedition in 1809, and the Peninsular War. During that period he was surgeon to Arthur Wellesley.[2][3][7]
Hume took part in the 1815 Waterloo campaign, on the medical staff as a deputy inspector.[8] He attended the Duchess of Richmond's ball on 15 June, the eve of the Battle of Quatre Bras.[9] On 18 June, the day of the Battle of Waterloo, he amputated the legs of Sir Alexander Gordon, who died,[10] and of Henry William Paget, 2nd Earl of Uxbridge, out of a number of operations.[11] The following day he awoke the Duke with the casualty list.[12] He also attended the dying William Howe De Lancey.[13]
Later life
The University of St Andrews conferred on Hume the degree of M.D. on 12 January 1816, and on 22 December 1819 he was admitted a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians.[2] On his own account, he had previously been in France with the Duke of Wellington.[14] From half-pay, he was made an Inspector of Hospitals in 1820.[15]
Settling in London, Hume became personal physician to the Duke.[2] His patients included Marianne Patterson in 1824, shortly to marry the Duke's brother Richard.[16] He travelled with the Duke to St Petersburg in 1826,[17] and was present at the Duke's duel with the Earl of Winchilsea, fought in 1829 as part of the Catholic Emancipation controversy;[18][19] he produced a detailed account of the duel.[20] He was made a commissioner for the licensing of Middlesex asylums in 1828.[21]
Hume was created D.C.L. at Oxford on 13 June 1834, the Duke being then chancellor of the university. He was admitted a fellow of the College of Physicians on 9 July 1836, and on the following 1 September was appointed one of the metropolitan commissioners in lunacy.[2] Following the resignation of William Frederick Chambers, Hume at this period also became Examining Physician to the East India Company.[22] He was sufficiently well known to feature in the early writings of the Brontë family.[23]
Hume was attacked and defended in The Lancet of the later 1840s, with other commissioners of lunacy, accused of being bedridden with gout, and a "sinecurist"; though he was active in inspections.[24][25] He subsequently became inspector general of hospitals, and was made C.B. 16 August 1850. He died at his house in Curzon Street, Mayfair, London, on 1 March 1857, aged 75.[2]
