Thomas Grainger Stewart was born in Edinburgh on 23 September 1837. He was educated at the city's Royal High School and then studied at Edinburgh University from which he graduated in 1858 with the degree of MD. He then studied at universities in Berlin, Prague and Vienna. On his return to Edinburgh he became a house physician under Professor John Hughes Bennett (1812-1875) and Professor Thomas Laycock (1812-1876) at the city's Royal Infirmary. In 1861 he was lecturing on materia medica and dietetics. Stewart was appointed as Pathologist to the Infirmary in 1862, as well as Physician to the Sick Children's Hospital, and in 1866 he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. At this stage in his career he had worked a great deal on the kidney and kidney conditions, on dilation of the bronchi, and on acute atrophy of the liver. In the 1870s he conducted lectures on Clinical Medicine at the Infirmary and on the Practice of Physic at the extra-mural school, and in 1876, on the death of Professor Laycock, he was appointed Professor of the Practice of Physic at Edinburgh University. Stewart was President of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh from 1889 to 1891. His publications include A practical treatise on Bright's Disease of the Kidneys (1869), and An introduction to the study of the diseases of the nervous system (1884). Stewart was also interested in Scottish history and archaeology and he wrote a drama around the Regent Moray entitled The good Regent: a chronicle play (1898). In 1882 he was appointed Physician-in-Ordinary to Queen Victoria in Scotland on the death of Sir Robert Christison (1797-1882) and was knighted in 1894. Professor Sir Thomas Grainger Stewart died on 3 February 1900.
From the guide to the Lectures and Papers of Professor Sir Thomas Grainger Stewart (1837-1900), 19th century, (Edinburgh University Library)
