Sir Robert Hutchison, 1st Baronet, FRCP (28 October 1871 – 20 April 1960) was a Scottish physician and paediatrician, and the original editor of the medical books, Clinical Methods and Food and the Principles of Dietetics.
He was a consultant paediatrician at the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, London and general physician at the Royal London Hospital. He served as president of the Royal Society of Medicine and the Royal College of Physicians and was created 1st Baronet Hutchison, of Thurle, Parish of Streatley, Berkshire (UK) in 1939.
Early life and education
Robert Hutchison was born on 28 October 1871 at Carlowrie Castle east of Kirkliston, and west of Edinburgh in Scotland to Robert Hutchison of Carlowrie FRSE and his wife, Mary Jemima Tait. He was the youngest of seven children. His father was a wine merchant, who, having a good knowledge of forestry, had authored a number of papers, and was also a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His mother, Mary Jemima, was the daughter of Rev Adam Duncan Tait, minister of Kirkliston.
Hutchison had his school education at Edinburgh Collegiate School, and then joined the University of Edinburgh in 1889 for his medical education. He graduated with first class honours and medals in all subjects except physics in 1893, and also gained the Ettles Scholarship. He was then posted as house resident in various departments including the Paediatrics department at the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, London. He later visited Strasbourg and Paris for his studies, and later was appointed to a junior post in the department of chemical pathology in Edinburgh. His essay on “The clinical estimation of the alkalinity of the blood” was awarded the Edinburgh University London Club Prize in August, 1895, and he obtained his MD degree and MRCP (Ed) in 1896.
Professional career
Hutchison was then posted as a resident at the Hospital for Sick Children, London in 1896, and then at the Physiology department of the London Hospital, in which he remained till 1900. There, he worked under Dr Leonard Erskine Hill, a British physician and physiologist. He was also appointed as house physician to Sir Thomas Barlow at the Hospital for Sick Children in 1897. Later, he was appointed as full physician to the Royal London Hospital and to the Hospital for Sick Children in 1900, after having served as Assistant Physician to the London Hospital for about six years. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1903. During World War I, he served as medical advisor to the Ministry of Food.
He was one of the founding editors of the Quarterly Journal of Medicine which was established in 1907.
Teaching
Hutchison is remembered by his students for his "ability to express in concise and fastidious language his extraordinary powers of clinical observation". Whilst teaching his students at the bed-side, he was known to be witty, which sometimes seemingly "reached towards sadism". Nevertheless, he was respected and loved by his students who were "entranced by his incisive comments on ward-rounds", and were attracted to "his individual method of teaching", which they found "was really in part a pose, an assumption of cynicism, that failed to hide a mind that was intellectually gay and a heart that felt deeply for all human suffering, especially the sufferings of children".
Honours and recognitions
In 1904 he delivered the Goulstonian lectures on anaemia of infancy to the Royal College of Physicians and in 1931 gave their Harveian Oration. In 1931 he was made FRCP (). He also received the LLD of University of Edinburgh and University of Birmingham, the Hon DSc of University of Oxford and the Hon MD of University of Melbourne. He was the president of the Royal Society of Medicine from 1934 to 1935 and of the Royal College of Physicians from 1938 to 1941.
On 6 July 1939 he was created the 1st Baronet Hutchison, of Thurle, Parish of Streatley, Berkshire (UK). In 1951 the Archives of Disease in Childhood, an international peer-reviewed journal for health professionals and researchers on childhood illnesses, published an issue in his honour.