A Thomas Annan photograph of a portrait of the surgeon "Maister" Peter Lowe (c 1550-1610), the founder of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow.
Following several years spent studying and practicing on the continent (he served for a time as a surgeon to King Henry IV of France) Lowe returned to his native Scotland and settled in Glasgow c 1598. He found that the practice of medicine in the west of the country was in the hands of "cosoners, quack-salvers, charlitans, witches, charmers, and divers other sorts of abusers" and petitioned King James VI for a Royal charter to establish a body to train and regulate the activities of physicians and surgeons practicing in Glasgow. That body was the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons in Glasgow, established in 1599 and subsequently named the Royal College.
Reference: Mitchell Library, GC 920.041435 COR
Reproduced with the permission of Glasgow City Council, Libraries Information and Learning
Keywords:
doctors, Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, medicine, portraits, Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, surgery