John Sutherland (physician)

John Sutherland (December 1808 – 14 July 1891) was a physician and promoter of sanitary science.

Sutherland was born in Edinburgh, where he completed his high school studies. He became a licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1827, and graduated M.D. at the university in 1831.

He was married to Sarah Elizabeth Cowie (1808–95), daughter of a Lancashire merchant. There were no children. Mrs Sutherland became a friend of Florence Nightingale, and assisted her with practical matters, when he became Nightingale's closest collaborator. Mrs Sutherland shared their concerns about public health; she was an active member of the Ladies' Sanitary Association.

After spending much time on the continent he practised for a short period in Liverpool, where he edited 'The Liverpool Health of Towns' Advocate' in 1846. In 1848, at the request of the Earl of Carlisle, he entered the public service as an inspector under the first board of health. He conducted several special inquiries, notably one into the cholera epidemic of 1848–9 (Parl. Papers, 1850 No. 1273, 1852 No. 1523). He was the head of a commission sent to foreign countries to inquire into the law and practice of burial. In 1851, Sutherland was appointed as the British medical delegate to the first International Sanitary Conference (aka Cholera Conference or Quarantine Conference). Louis Napoleon conferred him the Order of the Legion of Honour for services in producing a new International Sanitary Regulation.

In 1855 he was engaged at the Home Office in bringing into operation the act for abolishing intramural interments (ib. 1856, No. 146). He was also doing duty in the reorganised general board of health when, at the request of Lord Palmerston and Lord Panmure, he became the head of the Sanitary Commission sent to the Crimean War to deal with the massive sanitary defects of the war hospitals. This commission's mandate was not only to investigate but to implement changes. It started work in March 1855 on the worst Scutari hospitals and succeeded in bringing down the death rates. With Sutherland was a leading civil engineer, Robert Rawlinson, and members of the pioneering Sanitary Department at Liverpool, who did the cleaning out of the sewers and drains. On 25 August 1855 he came to England for consultation, and was summoned to Balmoral to inform the Queen of the steps that had been taken for the benefit of the troops. After the war he and Nightingale, with many others, tried to get the planned Royal Victoria Hospital at Netley cancelled (it was drastically redesigned). He and Nightingale jointly produced a confidential report on it for the war secretary.

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