Peter David Handyside

Dr Peter David Handyside FRSE FRCSE (1808-1881) was a Scottish surgeon and anatomist. He served as President of the Royal Medical Society in 1828. He won the Harveian Society Medal in 1827 and served as their Secretary in 1837. He was also President of the Medico-Chirurgical Society of Edinburgh in his old age (1871).

He was born at 16 South Frederick Street in Edinburgh’s New Town on 26 October 1808, the son of William Handyside WS (1746-1818), a lawyer, and his wife Jane Cuninghame. His elder brother Robert Handyside (1798-1858) came to the top of the Scottish legal world, becoming Lord Handyside. Peter was apprenticed to the eminent surgeon James Syme to train as a doctor. He studied Medicine at Edinburgh University. He then undertook postgraduate studied first in Paris then in Heidelberg under the eminent physiologist Friedrich Tiedemann.

In 1833 he began lecturing in Anatomy at Edinburgh University later also lecturing in Systematic Surgery, both based at Surgeons Square. In 1836 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, his proposer being his mentor, James Syme. He served as a Councillor to the Society 1869-71. In 1839 he became a Senior Surgeon at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary on Drummond Street. In 1858 he founded the Cowgate Medical Mission Dispensary in Edinburgh’s Old Town, aimed at giving relief to the poor (especially Irish Catholic) population in that area of the city. This dispensary was later supplemented by the "Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society’s Training Institution" in 1861. This was all housed in a building designed by Richard Crichton some 50 years earlier, attaching the Magdalene Chapel. It was expanded and extended in 1878 to create the Livingstone Memorial Institute. This facility later evolved into EMMS International.

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