John Macintyre

Who was John Macintyre?

John Macintyre was a Scottish doctor who set up the world's first radiology department at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, in Glasgow.

Macintyre was born in High Street, Glasgow in a family of a tailor. His mother was related to the missionary and explorer David Livingstone. Macintyre originally trained as an electrical engineer and worked as an apprentice electrician before enrolling to the University of Glasgow in 1878. There he changed his field for medicine and graduated in 1882 with the Bachelor of Medicine degree. He then worked as a naval surgeon in London, Paris and Vienna, and returned to Glasgow to assume a position of a Surgeon for Diseases of the Throat at Anderson's College Dispensary. He later established a private practice specialising in the treatment of singers and actors.

Macintyre is mostly known for applying his electrical engineering knowledge to medicine. In 1885 he became Consulting Medical Electrician at Glasgow Royal Infirmary where he established a "department for the application of medical electricity" in 1887.