Matthew Baillie (1761-1823)

Matthew Baillie, nephew of John and William Hunter, was educated at the University of Glasgow and Balliol College, Oxford. Following an apprenticeship with his Uncle William in London, Baillie was appointed physician to St. George's Hospital. At age 36, he left St. George's, ceased writing and lecturing, and spent the rest of his life in private medical practice. Baillie served as physician extraordinary to King George III, but he accepted rich and poor alike as patients. He was the last and most famous owner of the gold-headed cane, the coveted symbol of excellence among London physicians.

Baillie's most significant work, The Morbid Anatomy of Some of the Most Important Parts of the Human Body, was published in 1793. It established morbid anatomy as an independent science. Baillie gave the first clinical descriptions of gastric ulcer and chronic obstructive pulmonary emphysema and presented one of the clearest descriptions ever written on the pulmonary lesions of tuberculosis.