In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Edinburgh was among the most popular of all destinations for South Africans seeking a medical education. Scotland was thus the fountainhead of much of the knowledge and skill that subsequently led to the development of a high standard of medical education in South Africa. This article describes how four members of a South African family received their medical education at the University and Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons of Edinburgh and a fifth family member obtained the Membership of the Royal College of Physicians and was later elected to Fellowship. This is the story of a relationship spanning three generations between a family in which medicine had almost become a hereditary trait and the best of Scottish medical education
