Dr Hugh Dewar Memorial Fountain

Abercorn Park, Abercorn Terrace, Edinburgh EH15 2EF

Edinburgh Council's description of Abercorn Park reads “The park contains a fountain in memory of local doctor Hugh Dewar, who cared for the sick in the area from 1866 to 1914” but that doesn't tell the whole story...

The inscription on the grey granite drinking fountain informs visitors that the foundation was erected in remembrance of Dr Hugh Dewar “by his grateful patients and numerous friends, who deplore the loss in the prime of manhood of a kind friend and skillful and beloved physician. His quiet charity was known to the needy”. And still, we are no closer to the whole story.

Jane Anderson, died at his hands on 4 February 1914, a day after Dr Dewar called to her house to deliver her first child.

In the third stage of labour, while trying to remove the placenta and umbilical cord, Dr Dewar noticed a 'tube' which he proceeded to pull. He had in fact removed the 4m mucous membrane lining of the large intestine.

Quite how a medically qualified person could make such an appalling mistake is utterly incomprehensible but, it happened, and Jane Anderson died, in agony, aged 25.

Dr Dewar was never brought to justice – on the day before his trial for culpable homicide, he took his own life, most likely with narcotics.

For more info see:  The Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, Volume 93, December 2000

A memorial to another, far less controversial doctor, is the Dr Balfour Memorial Fountain at Newcraighall.