THE late Senior Staff Physician of the Royal Infirmary was born in Glasgow in 1829. His father, a native of Govan and a silk weaver there, died of cholera in 1832 during the first visitation of that disease to this country. His mother's maternal uncle, Sir Duncan McArthur, one of the two surgeons on Nelson's flagship at Trafalgar, and one of Wellington's attendants in his last illness, came to the help of the widow and her four children. The future physician made rapid progress at school, and became a voracious reader. He was also a stirring lad, and again and again nearly lost his life, by drowning in the Clyde, falling from rookeries, and down stairs, etc. His first employment was as casual assistant to the chemist in Tennant's Works at St. Rollox, where he was nearly suffocated by rushing into a cloud of pure chlorine gas at a newly opened bleaching-powder chamber. He next learned soap and candle-making, and, joining the Harmonic Society, made the acquaintance of many precentors, and frequently took the places of these worthies in the city churches. He also gained several prizes for poems contributed to Glasgow papers.
    On the death of Sir Duncan M'Arthur at Walmer, some money came to the little household, and he began business on his own account in oils, soap, and candles. He prospered at this, and found time to attend lectures on chemistry, physics, and natural philosophy at the Andersonian University. He had also frequent calls from James Macfarlan, the ragged phthisical mendicant who was nevertheless a notable poet, consumed with jealousy at the success of his contemporary Alexander Smith. The young oilman next joined the Natural History and Geological Societies, contributed papers to their Transactions, and made collections of fossils and glacial shells; and he published a drama in blank verse and other poems.
    An acquaintance which he then made with Roger Hennedy, Professor of Botany at the Andersonian, led him to take the classes in that science; and afterwards, having learned Greek and Latin by means of a tutor, he entered the medical classes in the old College in High Street. He acted as a dresser to Professor (now Lord) Lister, when initiating his antiseptic treatment of wounds in the Royal Infirmary, and he gained a prize for a collection of land and fresh-water shells of the Glasgow region, now in the Hunterian Museum. As a senior student he visited the Paris hospitals, and on taking the degrees of M.B., C.M., he gave up business, and started practice at Catrine. In 1870. however, he returned to the city, took his degree of M.D., and found himself presently in busy practice. In 1870 he began contributing to the Lancet, and in the following years he read papers before the Biological Section of the British Association, the Medical Officers of Health Association, the Sanitary Section of the Philosophical Society, the Social Science Congress, and other bodies. He contributed frequently also to the leading medical journals. Many of his papers were republished abroad, and Dr. Dougall was recognised as one of the leading experts and exponents of the germ theory of disease and of methods of disinfection.
    On the formation of the burgh of Kinning Park he was appointed its medical officer, and he retained the post for sixteen years. In 1876 he became a Fellow of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons, and on the Managers of the Royal Infirmary instituting their School of Medicine, he was appointed Lecturer on Materia Medica. Four years later he became dispensary surgeon to the infirmary itself. He was also for a time Examiner in Public Health, Physiology, and Chemistry to the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, and in Chemistry to the Royal Colleges of Edinburgh; and when the Royal Infirmary School of Medicine was incorporated as St. Mungo's College, he was appointed its Professor of Materia Medica. In 1890 he was promoted to be Staff Physician or Medical Chief in the Royal Infirmary, a position which he held till his retiral in 1900. He gave clinical lectures to the students, and acted as Examiner in Clinical Medicine for the medical diploma; and for six years he represented the Infirmary on the management of the Convalescent Home. Lenzie. He also held the post of Examiner in Medicine and Materia Medica, and Assessor in Physics for the Dental Diploma of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons.
    Among other bodies of which Dr. Dougall was a member were the British Medical Association, the General Council of Glasgow University, Glasgow Philosophical Society, Medico-Chirurgical Society. Pathological Society, and Southern Medical Society, of which last he was successively secretary and president. He also wrote a sketch of the society's history, and edited the Sanitary Journal for Scotland during the first year of its existence.
    He gave evidence as an expert in the local and English courts in many cases brought up by the sanitary authorities and it was upon his evidence and scientific proof that several in important by-laws safe-guarding public health have been framed - prohibiting persons from sleeping in the same room with milk kept for sale, and the like. In 1883 the Grocers' Company of London offered a prize of £1000 for the discovery of a means of cultivating vaccine lymph apart from the animal body. Dr. Dougall made 118 experiments towards this end, and though neither he nor anyone else gained the prize, his published results were of much value. Apart from more professional matters, he probably did much solid service to the country during the Boer War by suggesting to Lord Wolseley the supply of hobbling ropes for horses on active service to prevent them stampeding as the mules did with the guns at Nicholson's Nek. Ten thousand hobbling ropes were at once sent out, and Dr. Dougall received a letter of thanks.
    Outside his professional writings also, Dr, Dougall was the author of many general contributions to current journalism, and in 1891 published a volume of "Angling Songs," of whose contents at least one piece, "The bonnie wee trootie," has become popular. He was a keen angler and admirer of Burns, and corresponded with Huxley, Tyndall, Ruskin, Pasteur, the late Duke of Argyll, Henry Stanley, George Gilfillan, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Nansen, and others of the great men of his time, while his memories of old Glasgow were full of special interest. He had waded the Clyde at Govan, and heard the Riot Act read at Glasgow Cross. He died at his residence in Pollokshields on 14th November, 1908. Twice married, he left five children alive, of whom his only son is a doctor in Yorkshire, and a daughter is resident at Chinde on the Zambesi.

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