James George Playfair was born in 1786. He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh from 1809 to 1810 and joined the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1811. He resumed his studies from 1817 to 1818 and qualified as an MD in 1819. His thesis 'Tentamen medicum inaugurale de febre flava Calpensi' was published in 1819. He later edited 'The Works of John Playfair Esq with a Memoir of the Author', published in 1822. Playfair practised medicine in Florence, where he treated the family of the sculptor Hiram Powers, who later created a bust of Playfair that was bequeathed to the College in 1860. Playfair died in 1856.
