Alexander Edington

File:44-48 Great King Street, Edinburgh.jpg

He was born in Edinburgh in 1860 and educated at George Watsons College before studying medicine at Edinburgh University. In the 1880s he became assistant surgeon to John Chiene and was then professor of comparative pathology at the Veterinary College in Edinburgh. In 1889 Edington was awarded a doctorate for his thesis,{{cn|reason=It's clear this is his work, but is it not clear that this is a doctoral thesis|date=January 2018}} Contribution to surgical pathology and physiology.{{sfn|Edington|1889}} In 1890 he is listed as living at 44 Great King Street{{efn|44 Great King Street {{coord|55.957859|-3.199931 |format=dms |display=inline}}}} in Edinburgh’s Second New Town, an impressive two storey corner flat at ground and garden levels within the corner pavilion.Edinburgh and Leith Post Office Directory 1890-91

In 1891 he took a job as colonial bacteriologist and sailed to South Africa. This role appears to have been to gather data on the Rinderpest pandemic of 1890 onwards.{{sfn | Mack | 1970 | pp=210–219}}{{sfn|Burrows|1958|p=}}{{sfn|Miescher|2012|p=28}} Edington's conclusion of his studies was to add glycerine to the animal bile, which had an immunisation effect. His views were controversial, some proved to be incorrect.{{sfn|Cranefield|2002|p=300}} He also studied rabies in the Eastern Cape.{{sfn|Brown|2011|p=134}}

From 1894 he served as Principal Medical Officer to the Cape Government. In 1893 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Alexander Crum Brown, John Chiene, Leonard Dobbin and Hugh Marshall.{{cite book|title=Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783 – 2002|date=July 2006|publisher=The Royal Society of Edinburgh|isbn=0-902-198-84-X|url=https://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp1.pdf|access-date=4 April 2016|archive-date=24 January 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130124115814/http://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp1.pdf|url-status=dead}} He was president of the first medical congress in South Africa and editor of the South African Medical Journal. In 1900 he was awarded a doctorate for his thesis,{{cn|reason=It's clear this is his work, but is it not clear that this is a doctoral thesis|date=January 2018}} South-African horse-sickness: its pathology and methods of protective inoculation.{{sfn|Edington|1900a}}

In both the First Boer War and the Second Boer War he both raised and served in the Ambulance Corps based at Grahamstown. He served with distinction in the First World War acting as officer commanding of the South Africa Military Hospital and Senior Medical Officer at Dar-es-Salaam. His official rank was Lt Colonel in the Royal Army Medical Corps. In the 1920s he was medical superintendent to Grey's Hospital (now part of Edendale Hospital) in Pietermaritzburg before going into private practice in Greytown.{{cite news|newspaper=Cambridge Journals|date= 1928|title= obituary Alexander Edington}}

He died aged 68 in Greytown, KwaZulu-Natal on 16 July 1928 following a short illness.{{cite news|newspaper=Natal Witness |date= 20 July 1928}}

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• {{Cite thesis |last=Edington |first=Alexander |date=1889 |title=Contribution to surgical pathology and physiology |hdl=1842/23872 |language=en |publisher=University of Edinburgh|display-authors=0}}
• {{Cite thesis |last=Edington |first=Alexander |date=1900a |title=South-African horse-sickness: its pathology and methods of protective inoculation |hdl=1842/23873 |language=en |publisher=University of Edinburgh|display-authors=0}}
• {{cite book|last=Edington|first=Alexander |title=South African Horse-sickness: Its Pathology and Methods of Protective Inoculation|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ti2YmAEACAAJ|year=1900b|publisher=Harrison and Sons|display-authors=0}}
• {{cite journal | last=Edington | first=Alexander | title=South African Horse-Sickness: Its Pathology and Methods of Protective Inoculation.| journal=The Lancet | volume=156 | issue=4031 | year=1900c | pages=1568–1572 | doi = 10.1016/s0140-6736(01)89022-x |display-authors=0| url=https://zenodo.org/record/1428554 | bibcode=1900RSPS...67..292E | hdl=1842/23873 | hdl-access=free }}
• {{cite journal| title=Preliminary Note on the Occurrence of a New Variety of Trypanosomiasis on the Island of Zanzibar|jstor=80284 | date=31 December 1908 | first=Alexander| last= Edington|journal=Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Containing Papers of a Biological Character|volume=80|issue= 544 | pages=545–549| doi=10.1098/rspb.1908.0050|display-authors=0|bibcode=1908RSPSB..80..545E |doi-access=}}
• {{cite journal|title=Some Remarks on Spanish Influenza: Its Nature and Ætiology|last=Edington|first= Alexander|journal= The Lancet |volume=194|issue=5017|pages=730–731|date=1919|doi=10.1016/s0140-6736(01)48855-6|display-authors=0|url=https://zenodo.org/record/1428548}}

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• {{cite book|last=Brown|first=Karen |title=Mad Dogs and Meerkats: A History of Resurgent Rabies in Southern Africa|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LfFHBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT134|date=25 April 2011|publisher=Ohio University Press|isbn=978-0-8214-4367-5}}
• {{cite book|last=Burrows|first=Edmund H. |title=A history of medicine in South Africa up to the end of the nineteenth century|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fytrAAAAMAAJ|year=1958|publisher=A.A. Balkema}}
• {{cite book|last=Cranefield|first=Paul F. |title=Science and Empire: East Coast Fever in Rhodesia and the Transvaal|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=R8bLHUy8HQkC&pg=PA300|year=2002|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-52449-0}}
• {{cite journal | last=Mack | first=Roy | title=The great African cattle plague epidemic of the 1890 | journal=Tropical Animal Health and Production | volume=2 | issue=4 | year=1970 | pages=210–219 | doi=10.1007/bf02356441 | s2cid=43690453 }}
• {{cite book|last=Miescher|first=G. |title=Namibia's Red Line: The History of a Veterinary and Settlement Border|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Id3FAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA28|year=2012|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan US|isbn=978-1-137-11831-8}}

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Category:1860 births

Category:1928 deaths

Category:19th-century Scottish medical doctors

Category:20th-century Scottish medical doctors

Category:Scottish bacteriologists

Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh

Category:Scottish non-fiction writers

Category:People educated at George Watson's College

Category:Alumni of the University of Edinburgh

Category:British emigrants to the Cape Colony