David Middleton Greig

David Middleton Greig FRSE FRCSE LLD TD (1864 - 4 May 1936) was a Scottish surgeon who worked for most of his career at Dundee Royal Infirmary. He developed an interest in diseases of bone and came to be regarded as an international authority on the subject. He wrote numerous papers on skeletal abnormalities and Greig cephalopolysyndactyly syndrome (first described in 1926) is named after him. Over the course of his career he amassed a large collection of skulls demonstrating various bony abnormalities. After retiring from surgical practice he became conservator of the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh at Surgeons' Hall. He donated 250 skulls to Surgeons' Hall Museum, where some remain on display as part of the Greig Collection.

Life Greig was born at 140 Nethergate in Dundee in 1864, son of Dr David Greig a Dundee general practitioner and descendant of a long line of medical practitioners.

After a period working with his father as a GP in Dundee, he worked as a doctor at the Royal Asylum in Perth. From here he moved to the Baldovan Institute for Imbecile Children near Dundee. After three years serving as a military surgeon in India he returned to Scotland to take a post at Dundee Royal Infirmary (DRI). He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and was appointed to the surgical staff of DRI and lecturer in surgery at the University of St Andrews. a three storey and basement Georgian terraced townhouse.

On retiring from surgical practice he became the full time Conservator of the Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, a post he held for 15 years. During this time he arranged for descriptions of every specimen in the collection, created a new museum catalogue based on a much improved indexing system. He also supervised the re-mounting a large proportion of the pathological specimens.

He died in Edinburgh on 4 May 1936.

Publications

The Rhymes of Dundee Royal Infirmary (DRI) (an anthology of poems) A Case of Stab Wound to the Heart: Recovery Clinical Observations on the Surgical Pathology of Bone (1931).