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Dr. James Murdoch M.D.
of
Craigow 1785-1848
Early Pioneer of Medicine in
Van Diemens Land
8.
"Dr Murdoch, Fellow of the Royal
College of Physicians of Edinburgh, late Physician Accoucheur to the
Edinburgh Dispensary and Lecturer in Midwifery, having arrived in
the Colony by the CASTLE FORBES, intends to practise medicine,
particularly midwifery and the diseases of children. He will devote
one hour (10-11) every morning to give advice to the poor gratis -
Liverpool Street".
The instruction of midwives by him was
announced in the Gazette of 1st June 1822 under the caption of Midwifery
in the following terms:
"Dr Murdoch, Fellow of the Royal
College of Physicians, late Physician Accoucheur to the Edinburgh
Dispensary and Lecturer in Midwifery, will on Monday,, 1st July,
begin a course of instruction for midwives, including the management
of mother and child during the month. Poor lying-in women will be
attended (gratis) on application being made a few weeks before their
confinement. For particulars, enquire of Dr Murdoch from 10 to 11 o
'clock.
Five weeks after James and Grace arrived
in Hobart with their two sons, their third son Robert Bruce Murdoch was
born on 7th April, 1822 in Liverpool Street
About this time, Dr Murdoch took up the
question of a library for Hobart. On 14th September, 1822 Lieutenant
Robinson, Secretary to Lieutenant Governor Sorell, wrote to James
Murdoch:
"I am directed by the Lt-Governor
to acknowledge the receipt of the letter signed by yourself and
several other respectable inhabitants concerning the formation of a
Reading and News Room in Hobart Town, and to which his absence in
the Country prevents his giving an earlier reply. The Lt-Governor
commands me to express his perfect concurrence and sanction to the
Establishment proposed and I have to request that you will be so
obliging as to communicate the same to the other subscribers".
Apparently however, it was not until
1849, that the subscription library was founded in Hobart.
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