Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Dalrymple, John (1803-1852)

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1198287Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 13 — Dalrymple, John (1803-1852)1888George Thomas Bettany

DALRYMPLE, JOHN (1803–1852), ophthalmic surgeon, eldest son of William Dalrymple, surgeon [q. v.], was born at Norwich in 1803. He studied under his father and at Edinburgh, became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1827, and settled in London. Making the surgery of the eye his special study, he was in 1832 elected assistant-surgeon to the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital, and in 1843 full surgeon. In 1850 he was chosen F.R.S., and in 1851 a member of the council of the College of Surgeons. After attaining, in spite of feeble health, a very large practice in his speciality, with a high reputation for skill and conscientiousness, he died on 2 May 1852, in his forty-ninth year.

Dalrymple contributed two valuable works to ophthalmic literature. The first was ‘The Anatomy of the Human Eye, being an account of the History, Progress, and Present State of Knowledge of the Organ of Vision in Man,’ London, 1834, 8vo; the other, in process of publication at his death, was ‘The Pathology of the Human Eye,’ London, 1851–2, in which the thirty-six folio coloured plates are of first-rate excellence. They were from water-colour drawings by Messrs. W. H. Kearny and Leonard, and engraved by W. Bagg. A list of Dalrymple's scientific papers is given in the Royal Society's ‘Catalogue of Scientific Papers,’ ii. 132.

[Times, 6 May 1852, quoted in Gent. Mag. 1852, i. 626; Medical Times, 8 May 1852, p. 471.]

G. T. B.