A portrait of Robert Watt (1774-1819) by an unknown artist. Watt compiled the monumental bibliography Bibliotheca Britannica and was President of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow (FPSG), 1814-1816.
After attending the University of Glasgow between 1793 and 1794 where he studied Greek, Latin and Logic, Watt studied medicine in Edinburgh. He set up in practice in Paisley and spent time in London before becoming a Fellow of the FPSG in 1807. He bought a large house in Queen Street three years later, where he gave private lectures and tuition to students.
Watt began his Bibliotheca Britannica as a bibliography of textbooks and other important medical works for his students. He completed the work, with its 50,000 entries, shortly before his death in 1819. The publishers of the Bibliotheca were subsequently declared bankrupt and were unable to pay the £2,000 that should have been paid to Watt's widow.
Watt's other works included works on diabetes and other diseases, a Catalogue of Medical Books (1812) and his Inquiry into the Relative Mortality of the Principle Diseases of Children (1813). He was a visiting physician at Glasgow Royal Infirmary, 1814-1816.
Reference: RCPSG 1/12/7/70
Reproduced with the permission of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow
Keywords:
authors, bibliographies, Bibliotheca Britannica, Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, Glasgow Royal Infirmary, physicians, portraits
, presidents, Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, University of Glasgow
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