JOHN GLAISTER

    THE Professor of Forensic Medicine and Public Health in Glasgow University was born in Lanark in 1856, and educated at the Grammar School of his native town and at Glasgow University, where he had a brilliant career as a student, and graduated with distinction. Intending originally to enter the profession of law, he first underwent a legal training, and the bent thus acquired directed his energies afterwards to the forensic aspect of medicine, which, with the study of public health, has chiefly occupied his attention. He held a long tenure of the post of Divisional Police surgeon, and was for seventeen years connected with the Royal Infirmary and St. Mungo's College, before 1898, when he was appointed to his present chair in succession to Professor Simpson. He is a Doctor of Medicine of Glasgow University, a Fellow of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, a Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, Edinburgh, and holder of a Diploma of Public Health of Cambridge. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and of the Chemical Society and other learned bodies. Among his writings he has contributed largely to the Transactions of the Sanitary and Social Economy Section of Glasgow Philosophical Society. His dissertations on the subjects of Public Health and Forensic Medicine run to fifty different books, papers, and reviews, and his biography of William Smellie, the famous obstetrician, also a native of Lanark, has been declared the chief authority on the subject. He was a member of the Commission appointed by the Corporation of Glasgow to inquire into the Housing of the Poor, and took an active part in the work of the Commission. He is President of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. He has represented the Faculty on the Boards of Governors of the Glasgow School of arts and of Haldane's Academy. He was one of the earliest lay members of the Art Club, and he acted for many years as President of St. Rollox Conservative Association. He is a keen bowler and angler, and a capable musician.

Back to Index of Glasgow Men (1909)