Acts of Achievement: Black History Month tours of the Royal College

Welcome to Acts of Achievement: Black History Month tours of the Royal College!

Join us for an insightful journey through the Royal College of Physicians & Surgeons of Glasgow as we celebrate Black History Month. the stories of groundbreaking doctors, scientists and scholars from North Africa, South Asia and the Middle East. Learn about our ongoing research into our College history and our connections to the British Empire and colonialism.

During the tour you will discover 1,000 years of medical history through our Library treasures, including the works of great Arabic medics who flourished during the Islamic Golden Age. You will see Liber Canonis, De Medicinis Cordialibus, Et Cantica by Avicenna or Abu al-Hussain Ibn Abdullah Ibn Sina (980–1037) known as the father of early modern medicine.

Also on display will be a work by Constantine the African (c. 1020-1087) a medieval medical scholar from North Africa (modern day Tunisia) who introduced extensive Arabic and Greek medical knowledge to the West by translating numerous texts into Latin. His translations, including those of Greek physicians like Hippocrates and Galen, formed a crucial bridge between ancient medical knowledge and medieval Europe reintroducing Greek medical knowledge (as preserved in Arabic sources) to Western Europe.

The tour will also feature the stories of:

David Livingstone (1813-1873) a Scottish physician and Honorary Fellow of the College who spent years as a missionary in 19th century Africa.

James McCune Smith (1813 – 1865) an American physician, apothecary, abolitionist and author who came to Scotland in 1832 and studied medicine at the University of Glasgow. He was the first African American citizen to gain a medical degree. After his graduation in 1837, he became Clerk at the Glasgow Lock Hospital, a hospital for women with sexually transmitted infections. While working there McCune Smith campaigned for the welfare of the patients. In 1837, he published articles in the London Medical Gazette which exposed the mistreatment of patients at the hospital by a senior physician at the hospital. The tour will include a visit to the College’s Lock Room which commemorates the hospital.

King James VI & I (1567-1625) Our College’s Royal Founder. It was under his patronage that the establishment of permanent British colonies in the Americas began. Jamestown, Virginia, founded in 1607 was the first permanent English colony.

Dr Jamini Sen (1871-1932) Born into a well- educated family in what is now West Bengal in India, Jamini Sen was one of the first women to attend Calcutta Medical College, graduating with a Licentiate of Medicine and Surgery in 1897. In 1912, she became the first woman to be admitted as a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. She ultimately returned to India and joined the Women's Medical Service, working in hospitals across the country. She devoted herself to women’s health and to raising standards for women.

Edward Tull-Warnock (1886-1950) One of Britain's first Black professional dentists. The grandson of enslaved people on a Barbados plantation, he was adopted by a couple from Glasgow. He trained at the Glasgow Dental Hospital in 1906, went on to study anaesthesia at Glasgow Royal Infirmary and gained a Licentiate in Dental Surgery (LDS) in 1910 from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. Edward practiced in Aberdeen, Glasgow and Girvan in South Ayrshire. He was the brother of Walter Tull, a footballer who played for Tottenham Hotspur and was the first player of African descent to sign for Rangers in 1917, a year before being killed in France in World War One.

Also on display: JJ Audubon’s Birds of America

One of the College’s world-famous volumes of JJ Audubon’s Birds of America will be on display. Audubon (1785-1851) never fully acknowledged the work of others in the creation of his masterpiece, including people of colour. African Americans and Native Americans assisted in collecting specimens and provided him with information about birds which he incorporated into his writings. Audubon’s father owned a sugar plantation on the French colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) where the young John James was born. He himself owned several enslaved people over his lifetime.

The tour will start promptly at reception at 11.30am and take an hour.