John Graham Macdonald Burt was born in Edinburgh in 1809. He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and travelled in Europe, receiving his MD from the University of Giessen in 1826. Burt practised privately in Edinburgh and served as consulting physician to the North British Insurance Company and Surgeon in Scotland to King William IV. His most notable publication was 'Illustrations on Surgical Anatomy' (1831). He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in 1843 and served as its President from 1863 to 1865. He died in 1868.
