John Lizars

Prof John Lizars FRSE(1792–1860) was a Scottish surgeon, anatomist and medical author.

He was professor of surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and senior surgeon at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. He performed the first ovariotomy in Scotland in 1825. One of his pupils was Charles Darwin.

Besides authoring an early work on the dangers of tobacco, The Use and Abuse of Tobacco, Lizars published a number of important and beautifully illustrated anatomical texts in the early nineteenth century.

The son of Daniel Lizars, a publisher and engraver, he was born in 1792 at the "Backstairs" on Parliament Close in Edinburgh, off the Royal Mile. He was brother to William Home Lizars and to Jane Home Lizars who later married Sir William Jardine.

He was educated at Royal High School and then studied Medicine at Edinburgh University. He served his apprenticeship under Dr John Bell (Joseph Bell's grandfather. He obtained his doctorate (MD) in 1810, then acted as surgeon on board a man-of-war commanded by Admiral Sir Charles Napier, and saw active service on the Portuguese coast, during the Peninsular War, under Lord Exmouth.

Returning to Edinburgh in 1814, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of that city, and became a partner with John Bell, his old medical tutor, and Robert Allan. He was successful, first in partnership and afterwards alone. In 1821 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh his proposer being Lord William Napier.

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