Tag: Medicine

This relatively modern looking burial lair towards the North West corner of Greyfriars Kirkyard was used by the Hope Family since the 17th century, but the monument there today wasn’t raised until the 19th century. Perhaps the best know member of the family buried here is John Hope, the much celebrated botanist.

Born in Edinburgh in 1725, the son of a surgeon Robert Hope. John Hope studied Medicine at Edinburgh University, then studied botany in Paris at the Jardin du Roi. Hope graduated MD from Glasgow University in 1750. In 1762, he was elected fellow of the College of Physicians in Edinburgh. Hope had a lucrative private practice in Edinburgh and was appointed physician to the Royal Infirmary. He was active on the town’s council in improving the city’s sanitation.

Hope’s life spanned the Scottish enlightenment, when Edinburgh was the place to study medicine, and all medical students had to take botany courses. John created a school for botanists after spinning off the Materia Medica (pharmacy) department of the medical school, which allowed him to specialise exclusively in botany. Hope was an excellent lecturer, with his students travelling to Edinburgh from all over the world. He was appointed as the King’s botanist for Scotland and superintendent of the Royal Garden in Edinburgh. Hope was the first person in Britain to teach the Linnaean system of taxonomy (the system of classifying groups of biological organisms). A colored etching by J. Kay from 1786, depicting John Hope in the botanic gardens.

Hope’s creation of a new botanic garden in Edinburgh in 1763 was a bold and forward looking decision, completely in step with enlightenment Edinburgh that was creating The New Town. Hope received a royal warrant granting him the funds needed to construct the new garden on Leith Walk. The site was large enough to accommodate plants collected from all over the world, through Hope’s extensive global network of both professional and hobby botanical enthusiasts. With a large greenhouse and two hothouses, the Leith Walk Botanic Garden comfortably housed plants from many different climates, where they could thrive and be studied to determine whether they had properties of value to medicine. Edinburgh has had a vibrant passion for Life Sciences ever since.

Hope was a well known & influential character around Edinburgh and featured in one of John Kay’s many cartoons.

Hope died in Edinburgh in 1786. Today a small modern grey granite stone in front of his ancestors’ memorial commemorates him.

The area of the Kirkyard known as The Covenanters Prison holds the burial place of many of Edinburgh’s most accomplished 18th century scientists, physicians and polymaths. Robert Whytt certainly deserves to be recognised as one of this elite enlightenment group, who advanced human knowledge in many & varied ways.

Whytt studied at St Andrews, Edinburgh, London, Paris, Leiden & Reims, before becoming a physician in Edinburgh in 1738. In 1747 Whytt was appointed professor of the theory of medicine at Edinburgh University. He carried out a great deal of research on the Central Nervous System, disproving many conventional theories and establishing a new understanding of how nerves work to operate muscles. Whytt became one of the most accomplished neurophysiologists of his time. In his research, he outlined the significance of the central nervous system on movement, drew distinctions between voluntary and involuntary actions and clarified the components of the light reflex within the eye.

In 1761 Whytt was made first physician to King George III in Scotland—a post specially created for him—and on 1 December 1763 he was elected president of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh; he held the presidency until his death at Edinburgh on 15 April 1766 at the age of just 52.

Robert Whytt is buried in his family lair in the south west end of the Covenanters Prison.