Ballingall, Sir George (1780-1855), F.R.S., Regius Professor of Military Surgery at Edinburgh University

Some correspondence and papers collected by Sir George Ballingall, used to illustrate his lectures at Edinburgh University.

The collection contains an exchange of letters with David Barry (1780-1835) F.R.S., on colon inflammation and other matters.

The remaining letters, memoranda and case studies are on venereal disease, amputations and other surgical procedures, army and navy punishments, hospital conditions and tropical medicine.

The letters have various authors, most notably Sir Andrew Halliday (1781-1839) M.D. and Joshua Brookes (1761-1833) F.R.S.

A few printed items are present, with diagrams of litters for troops in India.

The full inventory of items present is as follows:

1-5. Correspondence with David Barry (1780-1835), [later Sir David Barry], on inflammation of the colon and its treatment with mercury and opium, illustrated by case histories, particularly from the 1st or Royal Regiment of Foot when serving in the Malay peninsula. Also discussion of the efficacy of bloodletting for ophthalmia, importance of good diet and care in nursing, and other matters. 1808.

6. General Orders, Headquarters of the Army: Choultry Plain, 28th September 1810, relating to a recent army revolt at Srirangapatnam, near Mysore. 4pp. Printed.

7. Circular from the Army Medical Department giving the results of a survey of cases of syphilis reported by regimental surgeons, with recommendations for treatment, particularly regarding the use of mercury. 1819. 6ff. Copy.

8. General Orders, Adjutant General's Office, Dublin, relating to the regular inspection of the Royal Infirmary, Dublin, and use of the 'strait waistcoat', arising from the court martial of staff surgeon Joseph Stringer on charges of cruel and unbecoming conduct in the treatment of soldiers of the 12th Lancers at the Royal Infirmary. 13 April 1822. 2ff. Copy.

9. Letter from Sir Andrew Halliday (1781-1839) M.D., thanking Ballingall for a copy of the second edition of his Practical observations on fever, dysentery and liver complaints, as they occur among the European troops in India...to which is annexed, an essay on syphilis (Edinburgh, 1823), and discussing the treatment of syphilis with mercury. Hampton Court, 7 March 1823. 2ff.

10. 'Dr Schmatz case of excision of the head of the femur.' English translation of a German case history of 1816. n.d. (watermark 1824). 2ff.

11. Anonymous memorandum on the feigning of illness in the army, detailing the case of Private James Glover of the 60th Regiment who feigned epilepsy in 1827. n.d. 2ff. Copy.

12. Anonymous memorandum on military and naval punishments, recommending abolition of two Royal Navy practices, the 'gantelope' and 'flogging round the fleet'. n.d. (watermark 1827). 3ff.

13. Letter from Joshua Brookes (1761-1833), F.R.S., to Alexander Copland Hutchison (d.1840) on amputation techniques. Blenheim Street, [London], 22 April 1829. 3ff.

14. General Court Martial held at Limerick on the 8th of September 1829, for the trial of Brevet Lieut. Col. Charles Bayly, late of the 98th Regiment, on charges relating to the unprecedented method of punishing soldiers at the regiment's depot at Tralee, using 'cats steeped in brine'. 8pp. Printed.

15. Letter from Barron Field (1786-1846) to Thomas Stewart Traill (1781-1862) M.D., on Gibraltar fever, with tables of sick and deaths and quantities of medicines supplied, 8 September to 13 November 1813 and 1 September to 30 November 1828. Gibraltar, 26 October 1829. 4ff. Copy.

16. Memorandum from Richard Webster (d.1831), surgeon, 4th Dragoon Guards, on a double amputation performed by him. n.d. (watermark 1829). 1f.

17. Return by the same, former surgeon to the 51st Regiment, to a questionnaire on syphilis, giving details of the treatment of regimental sufferers between 1816 and 1819, with particular reference to the use of mercury. 20 June 1830. 18ff. Copy.

18. Memorandum from James Stevenson (fl.1793-1841), surgeon, Madras Establishment, on hospital gangrene, giving details of an outbreak at Secunderabad in 1826. 25 Minto Street, [Edinburgh], 25 November 1830. 2ff.

19. Circular from the Army Medical Department on recording misconduct by hospital inmates in the 'defaulter's book'. 20 December 1830. 1f. Copy.

20. Memorandum by J.G.S. [? John Graham Stuart (1797-1863) M.D., surgeon, Bombay Establishment] 'on wounds, bites and stings as seen in India, taken from my note book', giving details of native and European treatments of gunshot and arrow wounds, tetanus, hospital gangrene and bites and stings by mosquitoes, scorpions, jackals, tigers and snakes. n.d. (watermark 1830). 4ff. Copy.

21. Memorandum by Daniel MacLachlan (1807-1870) M.D., assistant surgeon, 79th Highlanders, on two cases of malingering. Edinburgh Castle, 9 April [1831]. 3ff.

22. Circular from the Army Medical Office, Dublin, on the use of mercury in treating venereal disease. 26 October 1831. 2ff. Extract.

23. Case study relating to John Leslie, a carpenter aged 26, admitted to the Royal Infirmary, [Edinburgh], on 2nd October 1832 with an 'aneurismal varix of the left femoral artery'. n.d. 2ff.

24. Letter from Daniel MacLachlan on the treatment of syphilis, with tables describing '91 cases of primary ulcers treated without mercury from August 1828 to August 1832'. Perth Barracks, 2 October 1832. 4ff.

25. Memorandum from John Stokoe (fl.1806-1833), former surgeon aboard H.M.S. Thunderer, on malignant ulcers in the Channel and Mediterranean fleets in the early years of the nineteenth century. 36 Lothian Street, [Edinburgh], 13 June 1833. 2ff.

26. Specimen surgeon's certificate of examination of a soldier prior to court martial. n.d. (watermark 1833). 1f. Copy.

27. Letter from John Watson (1807-1863) M.D., giving an account of an operation for an artificial hip joint performed by Dr. John Kearny Rodgers (1793-1851) M.D., of New York City. Edinburgh, 19 February 1836. 2ff.

28. 'Memorandum of a case of the Rangoon sloughing ulcer in a sepoy', by John Grant Malcolmson (1802-1844), surgeon, Madras Establishment. 13 December 1836. 2ff.

29. Anonymous memorandum on ulcers and dysentery in the 13th Regiment of Bengal native infantry in Assam in 1826. n.d. (watermark 1836). 4ff.

30. Letter from Anthony Caesar Colclough (1784-1868), surgeon, 9th Lancers, describing the case of a soldier's wife who imagined she had swallowed a pin. Painshill(?), 11 March 1837. 2ff.

31. 'Nominal return of men who have had scorbutus at Port Natal...', by James Malcolm (1803-1848), assistant surgeon, 72nd Regiment, describing symptoms and treatment by bleeding etc. Port Natal, 12 October 1839. 2ff. Endorsed 'Miscellaneous papers, Surgical Division of the Course'.

32. Letters from John Gillespie Wood (d.1873) M.D., staff assistant surgeon, Upper Canada, on fever at Sandwich, especially among troops of the 85th Regiment stationed there, and its treatment with quinine etc. Sandwich, Upper Canada, 9 September and 5 November 1839. 4ff. Extracts.

33. Copy of 'General Sanatory Report of British Guiana from 1 April 1838 to 31st March 1839', by William Hacket (1783-1854) M.D., Principal Medical Officer, describing the overriding problem of intemperance among the troops. n.d. (watermark 1839). 3ff.

34. Testimonials for Dr William Hacket by Lieutenant Colonel Duncan Grant, commanding officer of the Royal Artillery in the West Indies, and Lieutenant General Sir Samuel Ford Whittingham, commander of forces in the Windward and Leeward Islands, especially commending his work during the fever epidemic at Demerara. Barbados, 6 January 1840. 2ff. Copy.

35. 'Nominal Return of Men belonging to the 29th Regiment who have suffered imprisonment with or without hard labor or Solitary Confinement from the 1st January 1839 to the 15th September 1840...,' by Arthur Wood (d.1885) M.D., regimental surgeon. Edinburgh Castle, 15 September 1840. 2ff.

36. Memorandum by George Kincaid Pitcairn (d.1854) M.D. on the treatment of venereal cases in the 58th Regiment from 25 June 1839 to 14 September 1841, without mercury and without the appearance of secondary symptoms of syphilis. n.d. 6ff.

37. Table of statistics of amputation at the hip, compiled by Ballingall from various published cases. c.1842. 2ff.

38. Letter from Hugh Tod Spalding Beveridge (fl.1841-1870) M.D., assistant naval surgeon, on a case of amputation of the right arm aboard H.M.S. Stromboli in 1840. H.M. Yacht Lightning, Woolwich, September 1843. 2ff.

39. Table of venereal cases in the 49th Regiment from 25 June 1839 to 30 September 1844, by Dr George Kincaid Pitcairn, regimental surgeon. n.d. 1f.

40. Letter from William Fergusson (1773-1846) M.D. enclosing an extract from his sketch of the history of syphilis and the record of its cure without mercury. Doonholm, nr. Ayr, 23 September n.y. 7ff.

41. Circular from the Commander-in-Chief concerning the performance of 'shot exercise' by military prisoners. Horse Guards, 25 January 1847. 1f. Printed.

42. Memorandum from Archibald Graham (1798-1894), surgeon, Bombay Establishment, on dracunculus or the guinea-worm, explaining that he had extracted two or three of the creatures from his own leg, and was sending one in an accompanying phial (not present). n.d. [Graham resigned from the Bombay Establishment on 30 January 1847]. 4ff. Endorsed by Ballingall 'Concluding Department of the Course'.

43. Memorandum from David Dumbreck (1805-1876) M.D., [later Sir David Dumbreck], surgeon, 72nd Highlanders, on his use of ether during a lithotomy operation on Private Alexander Gibson. Gibraltar, c.1848. 2ff.

44. Memorandum by [Benjamin] Lara (?1770-1848), naval surgeon, on minor punishments in the Royal Navy. n.d. 3ff.

45. A case of gunshot wound, and subsequent extraction of a bullet from the bladder. By E.M. Macpherson, assistant surgeon to the Ninth Royal Lancers, by James Dixon (1813-1896), assistant surgeon, St. Thomas's Hospital, 26 March 1850. 5pp. Printed.

46. Memorandum from Thomas Jollife Tufnell (1819-1885), medical officer, military prison, Dublin, on the diet of military prisoners, with extracts from returns by regimental surgeons. c.1850. 2ff. and envelope.

47. Letter from Charles Alexander Gordon (1820-1899) M.D., [later Sir Charles Alexander Gordon], surgeon, 57th Regiment, on the treatment of syphilis with and without mercury, enclosing tables of venereal cases in the regiment, 1846-50. Dublin, 27 February 1851. 8ff.

48. Daily sick report of the 33rd Regiment, by James Townsend Oswald Johnston (1813-1898) M.D., regimental surgeon. Edinburgh Castle, 20 May 1851. 1f.

49. New mode of reducing strangulated hernia, by Thomas Alexander Wise (1802-1889), former surgeon, Bengal Establishment. May 1852. 2pp. Printed. Signed by the author.

50. Letter from John Watson (fl.1834-1852), surgeon in charge of the naval hospital, Jamaica, on the comparative mortality in the upper and lower wards, annotated by Ballingall with statistics from Watson's enclosure (not present). Mrs Fraser's, 60 Prince's Street, [Edinburgh], n.d. 2ff. Cf. MS.6233.

51-65. Tables of examination results for the class in military surgery, [Edinburgh University], compiled by Ballingall. 1836-52. 15 items.

66-70. Plans and diagrams of bamboo and other litters for the use of troops in India. Lithographs by H. Archer, Lucknow. n.d. 5 items.

1808-1852

70 items

1-5 Correspondence with David Barry, 1808.

6-50 Miscellaneous letters and papers, 1810-52 and n.d.

51-65 Tables of examination results for the class in military surgery at Edinburgh, 1836-52.

66-70 Diagrams of Indian litters, n.d.

Purchased from Julian Browning, 1992.

Described in the Library's typescript supplements to its published manuscript catalogues; the contents of a supplementary handlist, expanding on the main catalogue description, have been added to the database description.