A biographical sketch of James Ranald Martin, Esq., F.R.S., surgeon in the Bengal Army, and late Presidency Surgeon and Surgeon to the Native Hospital of Calcutta.

Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A biographical sketch of James Ranald Martin, Esq., F.R.S., surgeon in the Bengal Army, and late Presidency Surgeon and Surgeon to the Native Hospital of Calcutta. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    memoir is descended in a direct line from Angus Martin Nan’Cath, or Angus of the Battles, noted in the reign of Elizabeth for his expeditions into Ireland; a time when the Western Isles of Scotland, in the words of Patrick Fraser Tytler, the historian, “ could on any emergency fit out a force of 6000 hardy troops, inured to danger both by sea and land, and equipped for war on either element.” Another of his ancestors was Martin Martin, bred to medicine, but who never practised it, the author of various essays in the Philosophical Transactions, published in 1698, and the historian of the Western Isles, and of a voyage to St. Kilda. The history of the Isles was dedicated to Prince George of Denmark, who presented the author with a purse of a hundred guineas. The voyage to St. Kilda was dedicated to Charles JNIontague, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and President of the Royal Society, and the intimate friend of Mr. Martin. It was the former work which induced the great lexicographer, Samuel Johnson, to visit the Western Isles. The elder brother of Mr. Martin’s father, Martin Martin of Bealloch, married one of the Miss Macleods, of Rasay, celebrated for their beauty by Johnson in his tour to the Hebrides. All these ladies married well, but one of them married the fifth Earl of Loudoun, and his daughter, the Countess of Loudoun, became the wife of the first Marquess of Hastings, subsequently Governor-General of India. It is proper to mention this latter circumstance, as bearing on the career of the subject of our memoir. The Marquess of Hastings appointed him, when a very young man, to his personal staff. The Isle of Skye has ever been noted for the energetic cha- racter of its inhabitants. In proof of this, we quote the fol- lowing extract from a northern print, the truth of which may be relied upon:—“ Within the last forty years the Isle of Skye has furnished for the public services 21 lieutenant-generals and major-generals,45 lieutenant-colonels, 600 majors,captains, lieutenants, and ensigns, and 10,000 foot soldiers of the most choice description. Within the same period this island fur- nished four governors of British colonies, one governor-general