William Tennant Gairdner

Sir William Tennant Gairdner (8 November 1824 – 28 June 1907) was a Scottish Professor of Medicine in the University of Glasgow.

Early life William Tennant Gardiner was born in Edinburgh, the son of physician John Gairdner and his wife, Susanna Tennant. He was the elder brother of the historian James Gairdner. He was educated at the Edinburgh Institution and then in his father's profession at the University of Edinburgh, graduating as M.D. in 1845. Immediately after his graduation he went to Rome for six months. He was taught surgery by Prof Monro and Dr Robert Halliday Gunning.

Medical career

In 1850 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh; and a year or two later was appointed physician and pathologist to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh (RIE). During his time at the RIE he was a lecturer at the Edinburgh Extramural School of Medicine. In 1862 he accepted an invitation to take the professorship of medicine in the University of Glasgow, together with the post of physician to the Western Infirmary. In the following year much attention was directed in Glasgow to the insanitary state of the city; and Dr. Gairdner, at considerable pecuniary sacrifice, undertook the duties of medical officer of health, which he discharged for ten years in such a manner as brought about a total change in the conditions which he found existing. From this time forward he devoted himself to the duties of his professorship and to his increasing consulting practice. In 1893, he was elected President of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and a Fellow of the Royal Society The same year he was appointed honorary physician in ordinary in Scotland to Queen Victoria, receiving the corresponding appointment on the accession of King Edward VII. He was made Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1898, and in 1890 resigned his professorship and took up his residence in Edinburgh.

Works

His principal works were Clinical Medicine, 1862; Public Health in Relation to Air and Water, 1862; On Some Modern Aspects of Insanity, Lectures to Practitioners (jointly with Dr. J. Coats), 1868; The Physician as Naturalist, 1889; and The Three Things that Abide, 1903.

At the time of his death it was stated that "his book The Physician as Naturalist, if not written with any idea of self-portraiture, at least contains a large amount of self-revelation; while his last publication, The Three Things that Abide, is made up of lay sermons on faith, hope, and love, of no common interest and beauty." Douglas Montagu Temple Gairdner was his grandson.