Andrew Douglas Maclagan

Following in the footsteps of a famous father can be a dangerous path. It carries the risks of accusations of nepotism and at the same time of invidious comparisons. Douglas Maclagan’s father, Sir David Maclagan (qv), had achieved eminence as President , successively, of both Edinburgh Colleges, was surgeon to the Queen in Scotland and Physician to the Forces. His son emulated, perhaps even surpassed his father, as he too achieved the Presidency of both these Colleges and was the most prominent medical jurist of his day.

Douglas MacLagan was born in Ayr, and had the distinction in infancy of being christened by the minister who had christened Robert Burns. His education at the High School of Edinburgh gave him a fluency in Latin which he was to put to use both professionally and socially in later life.

During his time as a medical undergraduate at Edinburgh, he was president of the Royal Medical Society, the oldest undergraduate Society in what was then the British Empire. He graduated LRCS from the College in 1831 and MD and FRCS 2 years later. Before the grand tour of Europe became established for young surgeons, he visited London, Berlin and Paris returning to Edinburgh, initially as assistant to his father and thereafter as assistant surgeon to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.

In 1845 he left surgery to become a lecturer in Materia Medica in the Extra-Mural school, and it was here during the next 18 years in this post that he laid the groundwork for his subsequent career in toxicology. He came to prominence as an expert witness on poisoning at a trial in which his opinion was at variance with that of the greatest authority of the day Sir Robert Christison. They subsequently became friends and Christison’s support undoubtedly influenced his appointment in 1862 as Professor of Jurisprudence at the University, a post he held until his retiral in 1897 aged 85 years! Maclagan went on to become the leading authority on the analysis of poisons and advised on virtually all of the medico legal cases in Scotland where poisoning was involved. His lectures to medical and law students were renowned for their clarity of expression.

He became president of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1859 and in 1884 was elected President of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, thus joining his father in the rare distinction of becoming President of both Edinburgh Colleges. He was knighted in1886.

Outwith medicine he was best known as a raconteur and poet, publishing a collection of poems entitled “Nugae Canorae Medicae”. The most notable of these was “The Battle o’ Glen Tilt” in which he promoted the rights of ordinary people to walk the Highland hills. The Aesculapians and the Harvean Society provided an ideal outlet for his humour.

Douglas Maclagan provided a link between 19th and 20th centuries. Born within months of Napoleon’s ill-fated advance on Moscow, as a young man he visited Goethe and was a friend of Sir Walter Scott, yet he lived to see in the 20th century.