Sir Alexander Ogston, 1844-1929

A Life at Medical and Military Frontlines

David A. Rennie (Honorary Research Fellow, Aberdeen University)

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English

Edinburgh University Press
08 December 2025

Biography: historical, political & military; Biography: science, technology & engineering; Surgery

Ogston's career was of far-ranging, yet underacknowledged, excellence.

Inspired by the work of Joseph Lister and Robert Koch, Ogston determined to find the cause of post-operative infection. Working in his home laboratory, Ogston established the link between acute inflammation and suppuration and microorganisms, discovered (and named) staphylococcus (better known today in connection with MRSA), and correctly linked localised microorganism infections with blood poisoning.

Ogston served as a medical volunteer during the 1885 Soudan Campaign and, in 1892, became Surgeon in Ordinary to Queen Victoria. Although instrumental in founding the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1898, Ogston remained critical of the army medical services. These views were amply confirmed by the events of the Boer War, in which Ogston offered his medical services. During the Great War, Ogston

in his early seventies and President of the British Medical Association

served as a surgeon with the British Red Cross at the Villa Trento hospital in north-east Italy

a site which served as an inspiration for the British hospital in Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms.

By: David A. Rennie (Honorary Research Fellow Aberdeen University)
Imprint: Edinburgh University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
ISBN: 9781399501323
ISBN 10: 1399501321
Pages: 168
Publication Date: 08 December 2025
Audience: College/higher education , Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Dr David Rennie is the author of American Writers and World War I and editor of Scottish Literature and World War I. His essays have appeared in The Hemingway Review, The F. Scott Fitzgerald Review, and the Cambridge History of American Literature and Culture in the Great War.

Reviews for Sir Alexander Ogston, 1844-1929: A Life at Medical and Military Frontlines

Sir Alexander Ogston's eventful life has finally been given the attention it deserves in this fascinating study. It forms a basis for new interest in Ogston's long-understated role in nineteenth-century medical advances and sheds light on the complex personal life of an important Scottish pioneer. --Jane Coutts, University of Glasgow