Francis Darby Boyd was born in Edinburgh in 1866, the son of John Boyd, publisher of the Edinburgh Medical Journal. He graduated MD with a gold medal from the University of Edinburgh in 1893 and worked as Tutor and Physician at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. He became a Member of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in 1891 and a Fellow in 1892. During the Second Boer War he served as Physician in Charge of a Scottish hospital in South Africa and later joined the Royal Army Medical Corps, attaining the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He was appointed Professor of Clinical Medicine at the University of Edinburgh in 1919 and died in 1922.
