James Miller

Arguably the single most momentous event in Scotland in the 19th century was the Disruption of 1843. Until that time, the Church of Scotland had been the one most important national institution in Scotland since the end of the Scottish Parliament in 1707. The Disruption saw over one third of the Ministers, Elders and members of the established Church leave, and the subsequent establishment of the Free Church of Scotland. Its first Moderator was Thomas Chalmers, a parish minister, academic and inspiring preacher.

James Miller, himself a son of the Manse, was inspired by Chalmers whilst a student at St Andrews University. Miller became a favourite pupil of Robert Liston (qv), and went on to a successful career in surgery, succeeding Sir Charles Bell as Professor of Surgery at the University of Edinburgh. He became Surgeon in Scotland to Queen Victoria and author of the most successful surgical textbook of its day, which ran to several editions and was successful in the United States. In his later years, after the Disruption, he devoted time increasingly to writing and speaking in support of the Free Church and its moral values.

Like many of his medical contemporaries, James Miller was born a son of the Manse, in Eassie, Forfarshire near Glamis Castle. His initial education was at the hands of his father whose religious influence was to profoundly influence his life. While still only 12 he began three years of study at the University of St Andrews where he came under another powerful influence – that of Dr Thomas Chalmers, a Minister and theologian, who was later to lead the dissenters from the Church of Scotland in the Disruption of 1843. That influence was to continue throughout Miller’s life. He went on to study medicine in Edinburgh, being taught by a dazzling array of teachers who would have included:-

For Anatomy - Alexander Munro Primus, Robert Knox and John Lizars
For Surgery - Richard Mackenzie, Robert Liston, James Syme and J W Turner
For Military Surgery - George Ballingall and John W Turner
For Chemistry - Thomas Hope
For Medicine - Andrew Duncan and W P Allison
For Materia Medica - James Home
For Pathology - John Thomson
For Medical Jurus Prudence - Dr (later Sir) Robert Christison

Having obtained the Licence of the Royal College of Surgeons, he became Assistant to Robert Liston who was later to become a friend and lifelong admirer. When Liston went to London in 1834 he invited Miller to join him. Preferring to stay in Edinburgh, Miller inherited Liston’s extensive practice and continued to attract patients from all over the world. As was still common at that time, his practice combined general with surgical practice. He obtained the Fellowship of the College in 1840.

On the death of Sir Charles Bell in 1842, Miller applied for the Chair of surgery and was appointed in the face of formidable competition from other applicants who included Douglas Argyll Robertson(qv) and John Lizars (qv) . Miller excelled as a teacher and an orator. His textbook “Principles and Practice of Surgery” which ran to three editions and was amalgamated into a fourth edition as “A System of Surgery”. An American edition was also published. Encyclopaedia Britannica had started in Edinburgh and the contribution on surgery was written by Miller.
Inevitably many honours came his way. He was made Surgeon in Scotland to Queen Victoria, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and Professor of Pictorial Anatomy to the Royal Institution, later the Royal Scottish Academy.

As a neighbour of James Young Simpson he was involved in the early experiments with chloroform in surgery, and in “Surgical Experience of Chloroform” which he published in 1848, he describes a necrosectomy under chloroform anaesthesia which was probably the first procedure to be performed using chloroform in Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.

In his later years, his skills as an orator and a writer were increasingly devoted to promoting the Free Church of Scotland and its moral code.