Scottish Airway Pioneers and Historical Accuracy

In Dr. Bause’s editorial in the February 2016 issue of Anesthesiology,¹  he very appropriately draws attention to the issue’s admirable historical review from Dr. Matioc, concerning “airway command” for the years 1700 to 1846.²  The editorial refers to “Scotland’s Tossach, Fothergill, and Buchan.”¹  While both William Tossach (b. prob. Perthshire, c.1700, d. Alloa, after 1771) and William Buchan (b. Ancrum, 1729, buried Westminster Abbey, 1805) were certainly born in Scotland, Dr. John Fothergill, a Yorkshireman (b. Carr End, 1712, d. 1780) was not. I made this same mistake in my article “History of mouth-to-mouth rescue breathing Part 2: the 18^th century,”³  which Dr. Matioc had kindly referenced (his Ref. 13). On learning of my error, I reported to the same journal’s September issue⁴  that I had come to consider John and Anthony Fothergill as Scotsmen “from their both attending the Edinburgh medical school and both being known as Northerners—but obviously they were not northern enough.” After my article went to press, I learnt of John Fothergill’s birthplace as Carr End⁵  from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (DNB). Christopher Booth states of John Fothergill, “He studied medicine at Edinburgh because, as a Dissenter (he was a Quaker), he would be refused admission to universities such as Oxford.”⁵ 

Finally, on returning after almost a decade to Part 3 of a mouth-to-mouth trilogy, I see I also had an instance therein of misnaming Anthony Fothergill (bap. 1737, d. 1813, and relation to John⁵) as “Andrew.”^6 (p224) Apologies are offered for that further error.

The author declares no competing interests.