William Burnett (physician)
British physician (1779–1861)
Sir William Burnett, KCB, FRS (16 January 1779 – 16 February 1861) was a British physician who served as Physician-General of the Royal Navy.
Early life
Burnett was born in Montrose, Scotland on 16 January 1779 and attended Montrose Grammar School. He was appointed surgeon's mate on board the Edgar soon after his arrival at Edinburgh to pursue his medical studies. Later he served as assistant-surgeon in the Goliath under Sir John Jervis, and was present at St. Vincent and the siege of Cadiz. He also served with distinction at battles of the Nile and Trafalgar.
Prison hospitals
Between 1805 and 1810 Burnett was in charge of the hospitals for prisoners of war at Portsmouth and Forton. His diligence in his most arduous hospital duties recommended Burnett in 1810 for the office of Physician and Inspector of Hospitals to the Mediterranean Fleet. His health deteriorated and he returned to England towards the end of 1813; but in March 1814 he was able to undertake the medical charge of the Russian fleet in the Medway, which was suffering severely from fever. He combined with this the charge of the prisoners of war at Chatham, among whom a virulent fever was raging.
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This entry incorporates text from “William Burnett (physician)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.