By Hamish MacPherson
Remains of the 13th century Elgin Cathedral which was burned down by Alexander Stuart, Earl of Buchan (Photo by De Agostini via Getty Images/De Agostini via Getty Images). AS with any family, there will often be squabbles and upset between the various members. Right now, the SNP seems to be having a fair old brouhaha. History always shows that a house divided is a house defeated – except for one, namely the royal Stewarts of Scotland. The battle within the national party is as nothing compared to the bloodletting – literally so – within the House of Stewart, even before James VI went south to become James I of England in 1603.
OVER the past two weeks I have related the fascinating and inspiring true stories of two Scottish women doctors who were awarded the Kaisar-i-Hind Gold Medal, the highest form of recognition for public service in India during the latter years of the British Raj. King George V, in his capacity as Emperor of India, awarded Gold Medals to Dr Isabel Kerr and Dr Margaret Ida Balfour for their immense pioneering contributions to Indian medicine, the former for her work on leprosy and the latter mainly for her sterling and successful efforts to improve medicine for Indian women. Today I will complete this trilogy with the story of Dr Mary Ronald Bisset who also received the Kaisar-i-Hind Gold Medal and who, like Kerr and Balfour, is revered more in India than in her native country of Scotland.
ONE of Scotland’s many unsung medical heroes is Dr Isabel Kerr, whose pioneering work in the treatment of leprosy is often forgotten in her native land but not in India where her memory is revered. It was in this week of 1932 that Dr Kerr died at the age of 57. She had devoted the last 25 years of her life to nursing sick people in India, particularly those afflicted with leprosy, and is reckoned to have saved hundreds, if not thousands, of lives. Leprosy, also known as Hansen’s Disease, has been a curse on the human species for thousands of years. The name comes from two Greek words that together mean scaly-skinned man – serious skin lesions are a common symptom of leprosy.