When a prominent individual from any walk of life is habitually referred to by a whimsically felicitous nickname, it usually indicates that he or she is an exceptional personality. There could be no better example of this than Mr W J Stuart, who is remembered as one of the best-loved doctors ever produced by the Edinburgh Medical School.
William James Stuart, a son of the Manse, was born in Edinburgh and educated at the Edinburgh Academy where he had a brilliant record both as a scholar and as an athlete. He was Gold Medallist and Dux of the school two years in succession and captained the Academy school teams at both rugby football and cricket.
After leaving school he played rugby for the Edinburgh Academicals over an eight year period during which they won the Scottish Rugby Club Championship four times, and in 1901 he was first reserve for one of the greatest ever Scottish International XVs. An aggressive, rampaging and superbly fit forward, he was rated the hardest tackler in Scottish rugby and many of his contemporaries felt that he was very unlucky not to have been awarded at least one international cap.
After school he entered Edinburgh University from which he graduated MA in 1894 and MBChB with honours in 1899 after which he held resident posts in the Royal Infirmary and the Royal Hospital for Sick Children. In his first postgraduate year, he had the honour of being elected Senior President of the Royal Medical Society.
Stuart then became an assistant in the University Department of Surgery under Professor John Chiene and, in 1903, he obtained the Fellowship of the College. In 1906 he was appointed assistant surgeon at the Church of Scotland Deaconess Hospital and three years later he achieved equivalent status at the Royal Infirmary as assistant to Sir Montagu Cotterill (q.v.), for whom he had the utmost respect and admiration, both as a surgeon and as a sportsman.
When war broke out in 1914, Stuart, who held a Territorial commission in the RAMC, was mobilised for duty as an army surgeon and from 1916 to 1918 he served in this capacity with the British forces in Salonika and Macedonia. After the war he returned to hospital and private practice in Edinburgh and in 1923 was appointed surgeon in charge of wards in the Royal Infirmary - a position which he held until his retirement 15 years later. Throughout this period he had been increasingly involved in College affairs and in 1938, he was elected President - an office which had been held by his uncle, John Duncan, from 1889- 1891. When the second World War broke out in 1939 he was called from retirement so that a younger surgeon could be released for military service and he resumed charge of wards in the Royal Infirmary for a further three years.
During his early schooldays at the Edinburgh Academy, he had acquired the nickname “Pussy” and this stuck to him for the rest of his life. It was a nickname affectionately bestowed and happily borne but, to many, it seemed inappropriate for a tall, dignified, stately man of imposing presence and even less appropriate when his formidable prowess on the rugby field was recalled.
It was Pussy’s conduct of his hospital practice that made his nickname seem entirely fitting for there never was a kindlier, gentler or more compassionate doctor. No-one could have been more completely dedicated to the relief of suffering and this intense feeling for his patients, combined with his courtesy, his integrity and his warm benevolence, earned for him the profound respect and affection of all who came in contact with him.
Pussy was an impressive diagnostician, a safe, if unspectacular, operator and an excellent lecturer but, throughout his 15 years as a “Chief” in the Royal Infirmary, it was clinical teaching at the bedside that gave him the greatest satisfaction.
He gloried in physical fitness and proceeded everywhere on foot or on his famous Sunbeam bicycle. He despised the motor car, the increasing use of which he predicted would lead to evolutionary atrophy of the hind limbs in Homo Sapiens and pitied all who seemed dependent on it. Pussy on his bicycle was a familiar sight in the streets of Edinburgh and the story of his daily passage across the busy road junction at the West End of Princes Street has become part of the city’s folklore.
He had operated successfully on the wife of the policeman who controlled the traffic at the West End and this worthy man’s way of showing his gratitude was to halt the flow of vehicles coming from all directions and to stand rigidly at the salute as Pussy pedalled unimpeded across the junction.
Pussy was a man of deep religious convictions who lived his life in accordance with strict Christian principles but there was nothing austere or puritanical about him and he greatly enjoyed convivial gatherings, particularly if they included a generous leavening of young people. Throughout his life he was renowned as an after dinner speaker and some of his most sparkling, post prandial speeches were delivered when he was past his 80th year.
His former House Surgeons, several of whom achieved high professional distinction, would foregather at intervals for dinner in honour of their former “Chief” and, on one of these occasions to his great delight, they presented to him a silver salver engraved with the figure of a cat riding a bicycle. It is sad that he died soon after a dinner given by his ex-residents in honour of his 85th birthday, but his career had been one of happiness and fulfilment and his end was as serene and dignified as his life had been.
Napoleon spoke of Baron Larrey, the chief surgeon of his Grande Armée, as “the most virtuous man I have ever known” and all who worked with Pussy Stuart or who came under his care could and did say the same of him.
