Peter Lowe (surgeon)

Peter Lowe, also spelled Low, was a Scottish surgeon who lived from about 1550 to 1610 and founded the institution now known as the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. He left Scotland in 1565 to study medicine on the Continent and finished his studies in Paris. By 1589 he was surgeon major to the Spanish Regiment in the service of Philip II of Spain at the siege of Paris, and he later became surgeon in ordinary to Henry IV of France. Settling in Glasgow around 1598, he found medical practice in the west of the country in the hands of quacks and charmers, and he petitioned James VI for a charter that allowed a medical incorporation of physicians and surgeons. The college later added dentists, which made it the only institution in the British Isles to admit all three professions. He wrote Spanish Sickness in 1596 and A Discourse on the Whole Art of Chirurgerie in 1597, and he is buried at Glasgow Cathedral.