George Stewart Beatson

George Stewart Beatson (1814 to 1874) was a Scottish physician who rose to be surgeon-general of the British Army and Honorary Physician to the Queen. He graduated in arts and medicine at the University of Glasgow, taking his M.D. in 1836, and joined the army medical department in 1838. He served on the staff in Ceylon from 1839 to 1851, was surgeon to the 51st Foot in the second Burmese war, and in the Crimean War was principal medical officer at Koulali Hospital in Turkey, where he helped organise the hospitals at Smyrna. He became surgeon-general in 1863 and principal medical officer of European troops in India, later directed the Royal Victoria Hospital at Netley, and held the Indian post a second time from 1871. He was made a Companion of the Bath in 1869 and died suddenly at Shimla on 7 June 1874.