George William Balfour
Scottish physician (1823-1903)
George William Balfour FRSE (2 June 1823 – 9 August 1903) was a Scottish physician, known as a heart specialist.
Early life and education
Born at the manse of Sorn, Ayrshire, on 2 June 1823, he was the sixth son and eighth of the thirteen children of Rev Lewis Balfour DD (1777–1860), by his wife Henrietta Scott, third daughter of George Smith, D.D., minister of Galston; James Balfour was a brother, Thomas Stevenson was a brother-in-law, and Robert Louis Stevenson was a nephew. After education at Colinton, he planned first to study veterinary science and settle in Australia; but entered the Medical School of Edinburgh. In 1845 he graduated M.D. at the University of St. Andrews, and was licensed by the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.
Career
After acting as house surgeon to the Edinburgh Royal Maternity Hospital, Balfour in 1846 went to Vienna, where he studied under Joseph Škoda, Carl Ludwig Sigmund, and Wilhelm Fleischmann the homeopath.
Balfour was a general practitioner in Midlothian from 1846 till 1857 when he returned to Edinburgh and practised as a physician on becoming F.R.C.P. Edinburgh in 1861. In 1866 he was appointed physician to the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, and from 1867 he was physician to the Royal Infirmary, being appointed consulting physician in 1882, on the expiry of his term of office. During this time he was a lecturer in medicine at the Edinburgh Extramural School of Medicine.
Balfour specialised in diseases of the heart and circulation and became a leading figure of his time in this area together with Sir William Tennant Gairdner in Glasgow, and Charles Hilton Fagge in London.
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