Abstract
George Ballingall qualified with the Licentiate Diploma of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in December 1805 and joined the Army Medical Department in May of the following year, spending the majority of his army career in India. He also served in Java. Eventually he was awarded his MD Edinburgh degree in 1819, and the FRCS Edinburgh and Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh during the following year. He was appointed to the Regius Chair of Military Surgery in the University of Edinburgh in November 1822, succeeding John Thomson, its first holder, and he held this post until his death in December 1855. Ballingall was the first to describe ‘Madura Foot’, sometimes called ‘Ballingall's disease.’ In 1833 he published Outlines of Military Surgery which ran to five editions. He was appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to the King (William IV) and Surgeon to the Queen. He also established a fine Museum Collection to complement his Lecture Course. Throughout his teaching career, he campaigned vigorously in support of military medical educational reform. One of his sons and several grandchildren also served in the medical service of the army or in that of the Honourable East India Company.
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