7 members ventured into Glasgow in the hot sunshine ( for the 2nd time that week) to visit the Friends of Glasgow Royal Infirmary’s “Rottenrow- Birth of a City” Exhibition. This exhibition is about the well loved maternity hospital built at the top of a steep hill that closed in 2001. The hospital was internationally recognised for its excellence in midwifery training, the use of Ultrasound, advances in Caesarean section, and research into maternal mortality. It’s commitment to compassionate care, innovation and education left a lasting legacy not only in Glasgow but to maternity care across the world.
Some of the acclaimed medical professionals who were based at Glasgow Royal Infirmary (GRI) were Joseph Lister who revolutionised modern surgery with the introduction of antisepsis using carbolic acid and whose colleagues mocked his theories. Dame Anne Louise McIlroy, gained her MB ChB in 1898, and was the first woman to be awarded a MD with commendation. Although she worked at the Samaritan Hospital for Women in Glasgow and then as a Gynaecological Surgeon at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Glasgow, her work is also celebrated in this exhibition. She specialised in Obstetrics and Gynaecology and was the first female Professor in the UK.
Ian McDonald was an English physician, educated in Scotland and South Africa before studying medicine in London. He recognised the value of ultrasound as a medical diagnostic tool and pioneered its use as a medicinal diagnostic tool. Together with Tom Brown a Glasgow born engineer they were the first people to craft the prototype system used for medical diagnostic ultrasound. The technology was first developed to detect flaws in the ship building industry nearby but they adapted the technology to capture images of foetuses within the womb. It was first successfully used at GRI in1958.