Henry Littlejohn

Sir Henry Duncan Littlejohn (1826 to 1914) was a Scottish surgeon, forensic scientist and public health official who served for 46 years as Edinburgh's first Medical Officer of Health. Born in Edinburgh, he studied at the Royal High School and graduated in medicine from the University of Edinburgh in 1847, and became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1854. Appointed Medical Officer of Health in 1862, he spent three years surveying living conditions in over a thousand streets and tenements, and his 1865 report showed the link between deprivation, disease and mortality. It backed a programme of slum clearance and regulations on water, sewage, building standards, food hygiene, waste and cemeteries. He campaigned for compulsory notification of infectious disease, enacted in Edinburgh in 1879 and across Scotland in 1897, and in 1900 identified a link between cigarette smoking and cancer. He also served as a police surgeon and medical adviser in criminal cases.