Old Photograph Straad Isle of Bute Scotland

Old photograph of cottage, houses and children in Straad village on the Isle of Bute, Scotland. Sir William Macewen was born near Port Bannatyne, Isle of Bute, Scotland in 1848. He was a Scottish surgeon. He was a pioneer in modern brain surgery and contributed to the development of bone graft surgery, the surgical treatment of hernia and of pneumonectomy, removal of the lungs. He studied at the University of Glasgow, receiving a medical degree in 1872. In 1875, he became an assistant surgeon at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, being promoted to full surgeon in 1877. In 1916 Macewen helped to found the Princess Louise Scottish Hospital for Limbless Sailors and Soldiers in Erskine, now the Erskine Hospital, near Glasgow, which was urgently needed to treat the thousands of military that lost their limbs in the First World War. Macewen was its first chief surgeon and with the help of engineers and workers of the nearby Yarrow Shipbuilders, he designed the Erskine artificial limb. He trained a team of pattern-makers to manufacture them for the hospital. Macewen died in Glasgow on 22 March 1924. He lived at Garrochty on the Isle of Bute until his death, and was buried nearby in the churchyard of St Blane's Chapel.



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