Peter David Handyside

Son of Mr William Handyside, Writer to the Signet, P D Handyside was educated in Edinburgh, and graduated M.D. in 1831. In 1833 he became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. He also studied in Heidelberg and Paris; and, early in his career, directed his attention to anatomy and surgery.

He became Lecturer on Anatomy in Edinburgh in 1833-4, at No. 4 Surgeon Square, the house at the south-east corner of old Surgeons’ Square, and rapidly rose to be a successful teacher of anatomy. Monro Tertius was Professor of Anatomy in the University; and in the extra-mural school, teaching anatomy, were Dr Knox, still with a large class at Old Surgeons' Hall, next door to No.4; Dr Sharpey, at No.9 Surgeons’ Square, who became Professor of Physiology in UCL in 1836; and Dr Alexander J. Lizars, who became Professor of Anatomy in Marischal College in 1841.

After five or six years, on his appointment as one of the surgeons to the Royal Infirmary, he relinquished teaching anatomy and began to lecture on systematic surgery, taking the lectureship at No. 1 Surgeon Square vacated by the retirement of Mr John Lizars from teaching and acquiring the museum of Mr Lizars, a large and excellent surgical and pathological collection, for which, it is believed, Dr Handyside paid the sum of £500.

He was a member of the Royal Society, and other scientific societies at home and abroad; and contributed many articles on anatomical, physiological, zoological, and surgical subjects to the current literature of the profession.

To him as a founding director, the beneficent Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society owes its origin and success “and his warm interest in all that related to the religious and moral welfare of medical students showed how earnestly he had their best interests at heart.”