| Authorised form of name | Chisholm; Colin (1755 - 1825); surgeon and medical writer |
| Dates | 1755 - 1825 |
| Nationality | British |
| Place of birth | Inverness, Scotland, United Kingdom, Europe |
| Date of birth | 1755 |
| Place of death | Sloane Street, London, England, United Kingdom, Europe |
| Date of death | 1825 |
| Dates and places | Burial:
St Luke's Church, Chelsea, London, England, United Kingdom, Europe (8 February 1825) |
| Occupation | Physician; plantation and slave owner |
| Research field | Medicine |
| Activity | Education:
King's College, Aberdeen (MD 1793)
Career:
Military surgeon to British forces in the American War of Independence; practiced medicine in Grenada (1783); published essays and papers on various subjects in the 'Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Review' (1786-1817); purchased a cotton plantation in Demerara (now part of Guyana) (1790); treatise on the causes and nature of disease (now recognised as Yellow Fever) in the West Indies, with observations on the island (1795); Surgeon General to HM Ordnance, Island of Grenada (1796-1798); attached to Ralph Abercromby's expedition of conquest in the Caribbean; spent five months in the Virgin Islands (1797); Inspector General of Hospitals, Grenada (1798-1800); retired to his estate in Demerara (1800-1803) which he later sold sometime after 1818; set up medical practice in Bristol |
| Membership category | Fellow |
| Date of election | 24/11/1808 |
| Age at election | 53 |
| Other Royal Society activity | Submitted a couple of medical and anthropological papers for possible publication (1809) |
| Relationships | Parents: William Chisholm and Janet Mackintosh
Married: Elizabeth Cooper |
| Published works | RCN: 33216
RCN: 33217 |
| General context | Chisholm wrote his account of a 'pestilential fever', now known as yellow fever, based on observations from Bolama, now in Guinea-Bissau, and identified the cause of the disease as contagion. This theory was considered contentious at the time and the debate around yellow fever continued into the 19th century.
Chisholm is listed as the owner in 1818 of a plantation in Berbice, British Guiana [Guyana], which held a total of 114 enslaved people for labour. |
| Sources | Sources:
Bulloch's Roll; DNB; Wikipedia; UCL LBS; ODNB
References:
'Colin Chisholm MD of Bristol', on Legacies of British Slave-ownership database [http://wwwdepts-live.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/2146633584; last accessed 16/12/2022]
Curtin, P D. 1964. 'The Image of Africa: British Ideas and Action, 1780–1850. Vol.1.' (Univ of Wisconsin Press) |
| Virtual International Authority File | http://viaf.org/viaf/71733673 |
| Royal Society code | NA3254 |