Rab and his Friends

Abstract

It is not unreasonable to see why medical textbooks come and go. The eternal truths found in anatomy can well be translated from edition to edition, hence the popularity and survival of Cunningham's and Jamieson's textbooks. It is not unexpected that the great textbooks of past such as Thomson and Myles Operative Surgery or Bennett’s Textbook of Physiology should have fallen by the way.

A few writings from the past, however, are rarely read and this is to be regretted. One such is John Brown's Horae Subsecivae. Much of the work provides somewhat ponderous reading for modern readers who have turned away from Scott to Hemingway to Le Carré. Such readers are hardly likely to relish verbose Victorian writers. However, within his writings John Brown had a masterpiece,namely 'Rab and his Friends', which came in the second series. In a gentle way it describes John Brown's hero, James Syme.

Edinburgh has been famous in a variety of ways, not least of which for its surgeons. It is difficult to say who is the greatest of Edinburgh's surgeons but in any discussion it would be impossible to dismiss Syme from the final analysis. It is curious that the greatest accolade that could be given to him was 'the Napoleon of surgery It is improbable that any modern surgeon would like his accolade to be 'the Hitler of surgery'.