Alexander Miles

Alexander Miles was closely associated with the Edinburgh Medical School for seventy years and there can be few of its alumni who have given to it more devoted service than he did in several different capacities. Born in Leith in 1865, he was educated at George Watson’s College and at Edinburgh University, from which he graduated MB CM in 1888; three years later he obtained the degree of Doctor of Medicine (MD) with the Gold Medal for his thesis and the award of a Syme Surgical Fellowship.

After serving in the Royal Infirmary as a House Surgeon and later as a Clinical Tutor he obtained the Fellowship of the College in 1890 and in that year also he was Senior President of the Royal Medical Society. In 1898 he was appointed Assistant Surgeon to the Royal Infirmary and Surgeon to Leith Hospital a few months later. At this stage in his career he conducted a revision course in Surgery and Operative Surgery in the Extramural School of Medicine of the Edinburgh Royal Colleges which attracted many senior medical students and which enabled him to develop the teaching skills for which he later became famous far beyond the confines of Edinburgh.

Miles was appointed full Surgeon to the Royal Infirmary in 1909 and having held charge of wards for what was then the statutory period of fifteen years, he retired in 1924 with the status of Consulting Surgeon. He was an impressive clinician and a rapid dextrous operator but he was held in particularly high regard for the quality of his clinical teaching and for the precision and lucidity of his writings. He made many notable contributions to surgical literature but the most celebrated of these was the “Manual of Surgery” which he and Alexis Thomson (q.v.) published in 1904 and which rapidly became one of the most popular didactic surgical texts in the English speaking world. Thomson and Miles could hardly have been more different in temperament but in their characters and abilities they complemented each other admirably and their collaboration as authors was as happy as it was successful.

When Alexis Thomson died in 1925, four editions of the Manual had appeared and his place as its co-author was taken by Professor D P D (later Sir David) Wilkie(qv). The ninth edition appeared in 1939 but with Wilkie’s death and the outbreak of World War II in that year, it seemed that this famous textbook had probably run its course. In 1950 however, the Edinburgh surgical community were delighted to welcome a third edition of the Operative Surgery volume of the Manual, edited by Miles and Sir James Learmonth (q.v.) to which the senior editor had contributed a completely new chapter on amputations - surely a remarkable achievement for a man in his 85th year.

Miles’ literary abilities were indeed considerable and were enhanced by what one of his obituaries called “his almost uncanny exactness in the management of words and clauses”. He was editor of the Edinburgh Medical Journal from 1911-1935 and his 24 years in its editorial char was indeed a “golden age” in that Journal’s long history. Another work for which he became justly famous was his “History of the Edinburgh School of Surgery before Lister” which presents much fascinating historical information in a most agreeably readable form.

In retirement Miles became increasingly involved in the affairs of his alma mater as a member of the Edinburgh University Court for 20 years. He also had the honour of being appointed one of the Curators of Patronage - that small committee with responsibility for selecting the occupants of certain University Chairs - and in recognition of these and other valuable services the University, in 1925, conferred upon him its Honorary Doctorate of Law (LLD).

He also had an abiding interest in the Astley Ainslie Hospital for occupational therapy and rehabilitation which was founded in 1921 and he was the first Chairman of its Board of Management. He was a founder member of the Edinburgh University Graduates Association which in 1948 elected him to its Honorary Presidency and he was also the first editor of the Association’s twice yearly publication “The University of Edinburgh Journal”.

Miles’ earliest service to the College was as a Fellowship examiner but in 1920 he was appointed Secretary and Treasurer and held this office for seven years. In 1927 he was elected President in succession to Dr Arthur Logan Turner (q.v.) and in the following year he became the College representative on the General Medical Council (GMC).

He held this important position for the next fifteen years during which he made a distinguished contribution to the work of the Council as a member of several of its most important committees such as the Executive Committee and the Penal Cases Committee on which he served for ten and twelve years respectively.

The History of the College from 1505-1905 written by Clarendon Hyde Creswell, College Officer and Sub-Librarian, was published in 1926 but Mr Creswell had died in 1918 and the task of editing and arranging his work for publication was carried out by Alexander Miles and Arthur Logan Turner. For what he did to ensure the publication of Creswell’s chronicle of the College’s first four centuries and for his many other great services, Alexander Miles at the end of its fifth century deserves the gratitude of the College and its Fellows.