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James Rutherford

Fellow

James Rutherford was born in 1840, the son of a Presbyterian minister. He obtained his MD from Edinburgh in 1863 and moved to Vienna after graduation to practise privately. After briefly working as Assistant Medical Officer at Birmingham Borough Asylum, he held a series of posts in Scottish asylums, first as Medical Superintendent of the Argyll and Bute District Asylum at Lochgilphead in 1870 and then as Medical Superintendent of the Barony Parochial Asylum at Lenzie in 1874. In 1883 he was appointed the third Physician Superintendent of the Crichton Royal Institution, Dumfries, where he oversaw the modernisation and expansion of the hospital. In 1867, with Lockhart Robertson, he published an English translation of Wilhelm Griesinger's 'Manual of mental diseases'. He retired in 1908 owing to ill health and died at Mountainhall, Dumfries, on 8 March 1910.