Misadventure in Muirhouse. HIV infection: a modern plague and persisting public health problem

This story is of particular interest and importance to Edinburgh and Scottish medicine. It describes the events in one general medical practice in Edinburgh, the Muirhouse Medical Group, and their impact and relationship to the AIDS pandemic. For many, the origin of HIV in the UK is now history. Since the introduction of HIV/AIDS into the intravenous illegal drug using community, much has changed but problems remain that should concern policy makers and clinicians.

The Greenock medical martyrs of 1864–65

In the nineteenth century it was not uncommon for doctors to die from infectious diseases, but the death of five young physicians in Greenock – one third of the medical profession in a medium-sized Scottish town – from epidemic typhus, during four consecutive months in 1864–65, was an unusual event. This paper describes the lives and backgrounds of these five doctors, whose deaths in the line of duty earned them the description ‘medical martyrs’.

Keywords Epidemic, Greenock, medical biography, nineteenth century, typhus