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Graphic: An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand 1966.

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This information was published in 1966 in An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, edited by A. H. McLintock. It has not been corrected and will not be updated.

Up-to-date information can be found elsewhere in Te Ara.

Contents


COLQUHOUN, Daniel

(1849–1935).

Professor of Medicine in the University of Otago and first editor of the New Zealand Medical Journal.

Daniel Colquhoun was born at Glasgow in 1849, where he received his education. He studied medicine in London at the Charing Cross Hospital Medical School, graduating M.D. (London) and M.R.C.P. in 1880. He was appointed an assistant lecturer and, later, a senior assistant physician in the Charing Cross Hospital Medical School, from which position he was appointed in 1884 to the Lectureship in Medicine in the University of Otago. He arrived in Dunedin in April 1884 at the age of 35 to begin his teaching and at the same time he entered private practice. He at once proved himself to be a sound physician and a good teacher of medicine. For nearly 30 years he gave of his best to the university, the hospital, and the community, and was a leader in every movement having as its object the improvement of medical education and practice in New Zealand. In 1909 he was appointed Professor of Medicine, part time. He retired in 1916, but in view of the war he agreed to continue his teaching until October 1918, when he left for England. He returned to Dunedin in 1933 where he died on 27 February 1935, in his eighty-sixth year.

Professor Colquhoun was a physician of the old school. Always faultlessly dressed, always driven by a chauffeur, always dignified and pontifical, and frequently in a minority of one in professional discussions, he was withal a most kindly person whose influence for good permeated the whole community. He bequeathed £2,000 to the medical library and £500 for the relief of “decayed gentlewomen”.

In 1884, at Dunedin, Colquhoun married Christian Campbell Macmillan (who predeceased him) – there was no family.

by Charles Ernest Hercus, KT., D.S.O., O.B.E., U.D., M.B. CH.B.(N.Z.), M.D., D.P.H., B.D.S., F.R.C.P., F.R.A.C.P., F.R.A.C.S., Emeritus Professor, University of Otago.

  • Medical Practice in Otago and Southland in the Early Days, Fulton, R. V. (1922)
  • Annals of the University of Otago Medical School, 1875–1939, Carmalt Jones, D. W. (1945)
  • The Otago Medical School under the First Three Deans, Hercus, C. E. and Bell, G. (1964).

Co-creator

Charles Ernest Hercus, KT., D.S.O., O.B.E., U.D., M.B. CH.B.(N.Z.), M.D., D.P.H., B.D.S., F.R.C.P., F.R.A.C.P., F.R.A.C.S., Emeritus Professor, University of Otago.