George Skene Keith (physician) explained

George Skene Keith (11 March 1819 – 12 January 1910) M.D., F.R.C.P., LL.D was a Scottish physician, photographer and author.

Biography

Keith was born in St Cyrus.^[1] He took his M.D. degree in 1841 and was admitted a licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (RCSEd). He became a Fellow of the RCSEd in 1845.^[1] Keith was a Gold Medallist in Professor James Young Simpson's class at University of Edinburgh.^[2]

His father was minister Alexander Keith. In 1844, he visited Palestine with his father for five months and took some of the earliest photographs of the region.^{[3] [4]} He took 30 daguerreotypes, eighteen of which were published as engravings in his father's book Evidences of the Truth of the Christian Religion in 1848.^{[3] [5] [6]}

In 1847, Keith took part in an experiment with James Young Simpson and colleagues which demonstrated the use of chloroform upon humans as an anaesthetic.^[1] Keith practiced medicine successfully in Edinburgh until 1880 but later became disillusioned with the medical community and embraced simple living.^[1] He was not fond of drugs, instead he prescribed little food, fresh air, plenty of hot water and rest to his patients.^{[7] [8]}

Publications

• Plea for a Simpler Faith (1897)
• Plea for a Simpler Life (1897)
• Fads of an Old Physician (1897)
• On Sanitary and Other Matters (1900)
• Plea for a Simpler Life: And, Fads of an Old Physician (1900)

External links

• George Skene Keith - WorldCat

Notes and References

1. George Skene Keith, M.D., Ll.D., F.R.C.P.E. British Medical Journal, vol. 1, no. 2560, 1910, pp. 237–238.
2. https://web.archive.org/web/20190207015055/https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c489/ae8cf104ff5c70fce8d12270e0ee8a7b5e9b.pdf George Skene Keith, M.D., F.R.C.P., LL.D
3. Gernsheim, Helmut; Gernsheim, Alison. (1968). L. J. M. Daguerre: The History of the Diorama and the Daguerreotype. Dover Publications. p. 159
4. Hannavy, John. (2008). Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography, Volume 1. Routledge. p. 476.
5. Moscrop, John James. (1999). Measuring Jerusalem: The Palestine Exploration Fund and British Interests in the Holy Land. Leicester University Press. p. 48.
6. Marien, Mary Warner. (2002). Photography: A Cultural History. Laurence King Publishing. pp. 52-53.
7. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/468092 Plea for a Simpler Life, and Fads of an Old Physician
8. Gillespie AL. A Plea for a Simpler Life, and Fads of an Old Physician. Edinb Med J. 1900;8 (4):356–357.