George Ballingall

Sir George Ballingall (1780 to 1855) was a Scottish army surgeon who became the University of Edinburgh's regius professor of military surgery. Born at Forglen in Banffshire, the son of the parish minister, he studied at St Andrews and Edinburgh, took his MD in 1803 and served as an assistant to the anatomy lecturer John Barclay. From 1806 he served as a regimental surgeon, spending some years in India, and went on half pay in 1818. In 1823 he was chosen as lecturer on military surgery at Edinburgh, then the only place in the United Kingdom giving special instruction in the subject, and in 1825 he took the chair, which he held for thirty years until his death. He was knighted in 1830 and became President of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1836. His best known works were Observations on the Diseases of European Troops in India, Observations on the Site and Construction of Hospitals and Outlines of Military Surgery, which went through five editions.