William Fergusson

author

William Fergusson

1773–1846

A Scottish army doctor who turned hard experience into vivid medical writing, he spent years following British campaigns abroad and later reflected on what war did to soldiers and hospitals alike.

1 Audiobook

Letters on the Cholera Morbus. Containing ample evidence that this disease, under whatever name known, cannot be transmitted from the persons of those labouring under it to other individuals, by contact—through the medium of inanimate substances—or through the medium of the atmosphere; and that all restrictions, by cordons and quarantine regulations, are, as far as regards this disease, not merely useless, but highly injurious to the community.

Letters on the Cholera Morbus. Containing ample evidence that this disease, under whatever name known, cannot be transmitted from the persons of those labouring under it to other individuals, by contact—through the medium of inanimate substances—or through the medium of the atmosphere; and that all restrictions, by cordons and quarantine regulations, are, as far as regards this disease, not merely useless, but highly injurious to the community.

by J. (James) Gillkrest, William Fergusson

About the author

Born in 1773, he became a physician and rose to serve as inspector-general of military hospitals. His career took him with the British Army to several major campaigns, including service in the West Indies, the Baltic, the Iberian Peninsula, and the 1815 expedition to Guadeloupe.

He is remembered not only for his medical service but also for his writing. Fergusson published Notes and Recollections of a Professional Life in 1846, drawing on long firsthand experience of army medicine and the realities of military care.

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and later generations also knew him as the father of the architectural historian James Fergusson. He died in 1846.