Adam Drummond

In 1657 an Act of the Edinburgh Town Council enabled the Incorporation of Barber Surgeons to recognise the surgeon-apothecary,. This led eventually to the demise of the barber-surgeon and the rise of a new generation of surgeon, knowledgeable about medical therapies. .Adam Drummond, son of a member of the Scottish Parliament, was one such.

After setting up in practice as a surgeon- apothecary in the Lawnmarket in Edinburgh, he went on to became the second Professor of Anatomy in the University (then the Town’s College), joining Robert Elliot who had been the first in Britain. He was succeeded in this post by Alexander Munro Primus, an appointment which marked the start of the golden age of Edinburgh Medicine. Drummond went on to become Deacon of the Incorporation of Surgeons.

Adam Drummond was the third son of Adam Drummond of Megginch, a member of the Scottish Parliament and a Privy Counsellor of Scotland. His father, a prominent Scottish lawyer and politician was appointed in 1692 as one of the commissioners into the enquiry about the massacre of Glencoe. Born on the family estate at Megginch in Perthshire, Adam the younger went to the local school in Errol before graduating from St. Andrew’s University. The route to a surgical career at that time was through apprenticeship and he was apprentice to Thomas Edgar (Roll No. 97) who had been Deacon of the Incorporation from 1685 to 1687.

On completion of his apprenticeship he went, as was the custom of the day, for further education in a continental University. On route to the continent he took a course of anatomy in London before further studies in Leyden.

On his return to Edinburgh, Drummond was admitted to the Incorporation in 1707, serving as its librarian until 1709. Having established a practice as a surgeon-apothecary in the Lawnmarket in Edinburgh, he was appointed as the joint Professor of Anatomy to the Town’s College (which become the University of Edinburgh in 1708 ). He held the post jointly with Robert Elliot, the first incumbent, and the first Professor of Anatomy in Britain. In 1720 he resigned, recommended Alexander Munro Primus as his successor and thereby established the famous dynasty.

Drummond’s practice as a surgeon-apothecary flourished and he dispensed remedies prescribed by the most eminent physicians of the day. This successful practice attracted many apprentices. These included John Campbell, (Roll No. 218) who, from evidence of prescriptions written at the time, must have visited the Edinburgh Physic Garden to collect herbal remedies like rosemary, St. John’s Wort, mint and sage.

The Drummond family were staunch Hanovarians. In the 1745 Jacobite uprising the Young Pretender’s army of highlanders having marched through Edinburgh, took on and defeated a Government army under the command of General Sir John Cope at the Battle of Prestonpans. The Jacobite song “Hey Johnnie Cope” celebrates this victory. After the battle surgeons from Edinburgh came to dress the wounded. Among these surgeons was Colin Simpson, one of Drummond’s apprentices whose loyalty to the Government was such that he was entrusted to deliver 400 guineas to another of Drummond’s nephews, Captain Adam Drummond, paymaster to a Hanoverian regiment.

Drummond had been librarian to the Incorporation of Surgeons from 1746 and was made Deacon of the Incorporation between 1748 and 1750.