Frederic J. Mouat - Misplaced Pages

British physician, and civil servant in India

Frederic J. Mouat
A portrait made in 1894
Born	(1816-05-18)18 May 1816 Maidstone, Kent
Died	12 January 1897(1897-01-12) (aged 80) Kensington, London
Scientific career
Fields	Medicine Statistics

Frederic John Mouat (18 May 1816 – 12 January 1897) was a British surgeon, chemist and prison reformer. He was part of the committee that helped identify the Andaman Islands as a suitable location for a convict settlement. He examined the use of chaulmogra oil in the treatment of leprosy and published the first illustrated book on human anatomy in Urdu in 1849. He was also involved in the founding of Presidency College, Calcutta.

Life

Mouat was born in Maidstone, Kent, the son of an army surgeon, and trained at University College London and the University of Edinburgh, qualifying as a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1838. His brother was Sir James Mouat. Frederic Mouat studied initially at Paris and then joined his brother at the University College London. He won a prize for medical jurisprudence in 1836-37 and qualified as MRCP in 1838. He received an MD from Edinburgh with a thesis On the brain as the organ of the mind in 1839. Mouat joined the Indian Medical Service in January 1840 and was posted Assistant-Surgeon in Bengal in June 1840. In 1853 he became Surgeon, in 1860 Surgeon-Major and ultimately Deputy Inspector-General of Hospitals. He was attached to the 21st Fusiliers at Fort William followed by stints with the 47th Bengal Native Infantry and the Artillery Battalion at Dum Dum.

Mouat conducted some experiments for the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce on lichens used in dyeing and sent a report to the Earl of Auckland who was so impressed as to appoint him in 1841 as Treasurer, Secretary, Resident Medical Officer as well as Professor of Chemistry and Materia Medica at the Bengal Medical College. He supported the deputation of four medical students including Bhola Nath Bose and Surya Kumar Goodeeve Chuckerbutty in 1844 for studies in England. Among the experiments he conducted were trials on treating leprosy patients with the extracts of chaulmogra (Hydnocarpus wightiana). In 1849, he published an atlas of human anatomy with notes in Urdu with the assistance of Moonshee Nusseerudin Ahmed and with illustrations by Colesworthey Grant. the only works upon European medicine extant... are ... chiefly in the Nagree character which is only understood by Hindu native doctors.

Mouat spent 30 years in India, where he was a leading figure in the field of education, in which he was a major campaigner to establish the first universities in India especially one in Calcutta was not acted upon until after 1857. His proposal made along with Charles Hay Cameron and Professor Malden for establishing a university in Calcutta along the lines of the one in London was examined in 1853 and shelved by the House of Lords. He also worked on prison reform while holding the post of Inspector-General of jails in lower Bengal. Here he advocated remunerative prison labour as a means for reformation and making prisons self-supporting. In 1857, after the Indian Mutiny, he was asked to investigate the Andaman Islands as a potential penal colony. The exploration began from November 1857 to January 1858 and led to the establishment of Port Blair. A bay in the Andamans was authorised by Lord Canning to be called as Port Mouat. They also took an Andaman islander "John Andaman" to Calcutta with the aim of ethnological studies and to help in improving relations with the Andaman natives. Mouat subsequently published a book about his Andaman experiences: Adventures and researches among the Andaman islanders (1863). In 1864 he wrote a Bengal Jail Code and was even working on a Prison Act but gave it up as "it was not required of me I neither completed nor submitted the work."

As a chemical examiner (part time and unpaid until the position was taken up by William O'Shaughnessy) he served on a Select Artillery Committee and helped develop, along with Colonel Edward Ludlow, a waterproof glaze to protect percussion caps in the field. He also examined the composition of gutta percha and conducted experiments on field rockets. Mouat also took an interest in photography working with the Frenchman Oscar Mallitte (1829–1905) in the Andamans and serving as the first president of the Photographic Society of Bengal (1856–57). In an article in the Lancet in 1892 in response to a debate on banning opium he opposed comparison of opium to alcohol, pointing out that opium-use did not come with law and order problems.

Mouat retired to the UK in 1870 and started a new career as an Inspector for the Local Government Board. He founded the Bethune Society in Calcutta in 1851 to promote more interaction between educated Indians and the Europeans. He was also an active member of the Royal Statistical Society, joining it in 1847 on invitation from W. H. Sykes and becoming its president in 1890.

Mouat married twice, first on 15 September 1842 to Mary Rennards Boyes who died at Kensington in 1885. No children are recorded from this marriage. In June 1889 he married a widow, Margaret Kay, daughter of John Fawcus, a Justice of Peace who had four children from her earlier marriage. Mouat died on 12 January 1897 at his home in Durham Villas, Kensington from pneumonia and asthenia. He was cremated at Woking as wished by him. He left a widow and four stepchildren. A memorial bust made by Hamo Thornycraft in 1874 was bequeathed to the University College London.

References

^ Lawrenson, Ross (November 2007). "Frederic John Mouat (1816-97), MD FRCS LLD of the Indian Medical Service". Journal of Medical Biography. 15 (4). England: 201–205. doi:10.1258/j.jmb.2007.06-45. ISSN 0967-7720. PMID 18172559. S2CID 9748656.
^ "The establishment of the Presidency Universities". The Modern Review. 11 (4): 358–360. 1912.
Mouat, F.J. (1854). "Note on native Remedies". Indian Annals of Medical Sciences. 1: 646–652.
Allan, Nigel (1993). Ever the twain shall meet: The interaction of medical science, East and West. Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine. pp. 37–38.
Basu, Ananthnath (1944). University Education in India. Past and Present. The Book Emporium Limited. pp. 18–22.
Mouat, F. J. (1862). "Narrative of an Expedition to the Andaman Islands in 1857". The Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London. 32: 109–126. doi:10.2307/1798404. ISSN 0266-6235. JSTOR 1798404.
"Obituary". British Medical Journal. 1 (1888): 628–629. 1897. PMC 2433148.
Mulvany, John (1918). "Two notable prison administrators in Bengal. Frederick J. Mouat - Alfred Swayne Lethbridge". The Calcutta Review: 73–104.
Anderson, Clare (1 March 2009). "Oscar Mallitte's Andaman Photographs, 1857–8" (PDF). History Workshop Journal. 67 (1): 152–172. doi:10.1093/hwj/dbn078. ISSN 1363-3554. PMID 19824228.
Mouat, F.J. (1892). "The Ethics of Opium and Alcohol". The Lancet. 139 (3583): 959–961. doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(02)14263-2.
Mouat, F. J. (1891). "The Opening Address of F. J. Mouat, M.D., F.R.C.S., LL.D., President of the Royal Statistical Society. Session 1891-92. Delivered 17th November, 1891". Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. 54 (4): 571–596. doi:10.2307/2979487. ISSN 0952-8385.
"Royal Statistical Society Presidents". Royal Statistical Society. Archived from the original on 17 March 2012. Retrieved 6 August 2010.

External links

Rough notes of a trip to Reunion, the Mauritius and Ceylon (1852)
Adventures and researches among the Andaman islanders (1863)
The value of European life in India (1873)
Hospital construction and management (1883) with H.S. Snell
"Foundation of Mouat Scholarships in the Calcutta University". New Delhi: National Archives of India. 1883. PR_000003043947.

v t e Presidents of the Royal Statistical Society
19th century	1834–1836 The Marquess of Lansdowne 1836–1838 Sir Charles Lemon, Bt 1838–1840 The Earl FitzWilliam 1840–1842 Viscount Sandon 1842–1843 The Marquess of Lansdowne 1843–1845 Lord Ashley 1845–1847 The Lord Monteagle of Brandon 1847–1849 The Earl FitzWilliam 1849–1851 The Earl of Harrowby 1851–1853 The Lord Overstone 1853–1855 The Earl FitzWilliam 1855–1857 The Earl of Harrowby 1857–1859 Lord Stanley 1859–1861 Lord John Russell 1861–1863 Sir John Pakington, Bt 1863–1865 William Henry Sykes 1865–1867 The Lord Houghton 1867–1869 William Ewart Gladstone 1869–1871 William Newmarch 1871–1873 William Farr 1873–1875 William Guy 1875–1877 James Heywood 1877–1879 George Shaw-Lefevre 1879–1880 Thomas Brassey 1880–1882 James Caird 1882–1884 Robert Giffen 1884–1886 Rawson W. Rawson 1886–1888 George Goschen 1888–1890 Thomas Graham Balfour 1890–1892 Frederic J. Mouat 1892–1894 Charles Booth 1894–1896 The Lord Farrer 1896–1897 John Biddulph Martin 1897 Alfred Edmund Bateman 1897–1899 Leonard Courtney 1899–1900 Henry Fowler 1900–1902 The Lord Avebury
20th century	1902–1904 Patrick George Craigie 1904–1905 Sir Francis Powell, Bt 1905–1906 The Earl of Onslow 1906–1907 Richard Martin 1907–1909 Sir Charles Dilke, Bt 1909–1910 Jervoise Athelstane Baines 1910–1912 Lord George Hamilton 1912–1914 Francis Ysidro Edgeworth 1914–1915 The Lord Welby 1915–1916 Lord George Hamilton 1916–1918 Bernard Mallet, Registrar General 1918–1920 Herbert Samuel 1920–1922 R. Henry Rew 1922–1924 The Lord Emmott 1924–1926 Udny Yule 1926–1928 The Viscount D'Abernon 1928–1930 A. William Flux 1930–1932 Sir Josiah Stamp 1932–1934 The Lord Meston 1934–1936 Major Greenwood 1936–1938 The Lord Kennet 1938–1940 Arthur Lyon Bowley 1940–1941 Henry William Macrosty 1941 Hector Leak 1941–1943 William Beveridge 1943–1945 Ernest Charles Snow 1945–1947 The Lord Woolton 1947–1949 David Heron 1949–1950 Sir Geoffrey Heyworth 1950–1952 Austin Bradford Hill 1952–1954 Ronald Fisher 1954–1955 The Lord Piercy 1955–1957 Egon Pearson 1957–1959 Harry Campion 1959–1960 Hugh Beaver 1960–1962 Maurice Kendall 1962–1964 Joseph Oscar Irwin 1964–1965 Sir Paul Chambers 1965–1966 L. H. C. Tippett 1966–1967 M. S. Bartlett 1967–1968 Frank Yates 1968–1969 Arthur Cockfield 1969–1970 R. G. D. Allen 1970–1971 Bernard Benjamin 1971–1972 George Alfred Barnard 1972–1973 Harold Wilson 1973–1974 D. J. Finney 1974–1975 Henry Daniels 1975–1977 Stella Cunliffe 1977–1978 Henry Wynn 1978–1980 Sir Claus Moser 1980–1982 David Cox 1982–1984 Peter Armitage 1984–1985 Walter Bodmer 1985–1986 John Nelder 1986–1987 James Durbin 1987–1989 John Kingman 1989–1991 Peter G. Moore 1991–1993 T. M. F. Smith 1993–1995 D. J. Bartholomew 1995–1997 Adrian Smith 1997–1999 Robert Nicholas Curnow 1999–2001 Denise Lievesley
21st century	2001–2003 Peter Green 2003–2005 Andy Grieve 2005–2007 Tim Holt 2008–2009 David Hand 2010–2010 Bernard Silverman (resigned Feb 2010; replaced pro tem by David Hand) 2011–2012 Valerie Isham 2013–2014 John Pullinger 2014–2016 Peter Diggle 2017–2018 David Spiegelhalter 2019– Deborah Ashby
Category List

Categories: