John Robert Hume

John Robert Hume (c.1781–1857) was a Scottish surgeon and physician. He is cited as an example of a 19th-century medical career that arrived at a high position in the profession, without early qualifications.

Born in Renfrewshire in 1781 or 1782, he was the son of Joseph Hume, a medical practitioner at Hamilton. He studied medicine at Glasgow in 1795, 1798, and at Edinburgh in 1796–7. He entered the medical service of the army as a hospital mate, was in Holland in 1799, and joined the 92nd Regiment of Foot as assistant surgeon in 1800. He was in Egypt in 1801. In that campaign he served as surgeon on HMS Ceres. Some of his journals for his visit to Cyprus (including Larnaka and Limassol) were printed.

Hume served in the Walcheren Expedition in 1809, and the Peninsula War. During that period he was surgeon to Arthur Wellesley.

Hume took part in the 1815 Waterloo campaign, on the medical stall as a deputy inspector. He attended the Duchess of Richmond's ball on 15 June, the eve of the Battle of Quatre Bras. On 18 June, the day of the Battle of Waterloo, he amputated the legs of Sir Alexander Gordon, who died, and of Henry William Paget, 2nd Earl of Uxbridge, out of a number of operations. The following day he awoke the Duke with the casualty list. He also attended the dying William Howe De Lancey.

The University of St Andrews conferred on Hume the degree of M.D. on 12 January 1816, and on 22 December 1819 he was admitted a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians. On his own account, he had previously been in France with the Duke of Wellington. From half-pay, he was made an Inspector of Hospitals in 1820.

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