page_title: James Borthwick
section_title: Surgical career
hierarchical_section_title: James Borthwick / Surgical career
caption_attribution_description: English: Tombstone, bearing a 'memento mori' motif, on the wall of Greyfriars Kirk. It marks the grave of James Borthwick who joined the Incorporation of Surgeons in 1645, became its Deacon (president) and was appointed Britain's first professor of anatomy in 1650. He died in 1676.
context_page_description: James Borthwick of Stow was a Scottish surgeon who was the first teacher of anatomy in the Incorporation of Surgeons and Barbers of Edinburgh. He was Deacon of the Incorporation on two occasions and a member of the Scottish Parliament. Borthwick was largely responsible for the formal creation of the surgeon-apothecary in Edinburgh.
context_section_description: Borthwick's duties included  performing anatomical dissections for the instruction of apprentices. His admission and appointment as anatomy teacher appear to have been facilitated by Alexander Pennycuik with whom he had served as a surgeon with the army overseas and who was Deacon of the Incorporation at the time of Borthwick’s appointment.
  This was the first time that the Incorporation had designated a specific teacher of anatomy.
  Borthwick, having served time as an apothecary, introduced the teaching of pharmacy into the Incorporation, an addition to the surgeons repertoire which reduced the decline in the fortunes of the Incorporation by making a surgical career more attractive.
  He was responsible, jointly, with Thomas Kincaid for the act of the Town Council  which, in 1657, brought the Surgeon- Apothecary into being in Edinburgh. Up until then the surgeons and apothecaries had different areas of practice, the surgeons being responsible for treating tumours, wounds, ulcers and fractures while the apothecaries were involved in dispensing medicines. After the 1657 Act  it became possible to combine these skills as a surgeon-apothecary. This was ratified by Act of the Scottish Parliament in 1670.
  In 1647 he rented rooms in Dickson's Close, Edinburgh, which provided the first regular meeting place for the surgeons.
  His apprentices included William Borthwick of Pilmuir, the first of the Edinburgh surgeons known to have studied medicine at Padua and Leiden after admission to Fellowship.
  James Borthwick was Deacon of the Incorporation from 1648 to 1651 and again from 1659 to 1661.  He was a member of the Scottish Parliament representing Edinburgh. His portrait in the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh is the oldest in the College.
  Addition lands and property around Stow we gifted to him in 1670, an event ratified by the Scottish Parliament.
caption: Mural monument at the grave of James Borthwick, Greyfriars Churchyard, Edinburgh.
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