Background
Born in Edinburgh, where his father was in business, Milroy attended Edinburgh High School, and made medical studies at Edinburgh University.
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Gavin Milroy
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University of Edinburgh.
Career
He became Member Royal College of Surgeons Edinburgh in June 1824, and Doctor of Medicine Edinburgh in July 1828. Milroy then worked as a general practitioner in London. He made a voyage as medical officer in the government packet service to the West Indies and the Mediterranean, and on his return concentrated on writing for medical periodicals.
An opponent of quarantine, he was recognised as an authority on epidemiology, and was employed in several government commissions of inspection and inquiry.
In 1849-1850 he was a superintendent medical inspector of the General Board of Health. In 1852 he was sent by the Colonial Office to Jamaica, and wrote an official sanitary report.
In 1858 he was honorary secretary of the committee appointed by the Social Science Association to inquire into the practice and results of quarantine, and the results of the inquiries were printed in three parliamentary papers. Milroy belonged to the Medical and Chirurgical Society, and was involved in the establishment and management of the Epidemiological Society.
He was admitted a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians on 22 December 1847, and was elected a fellow in 1853.
He had no permanent medical appointment from government, but a civil list pension was granted to him. In later life Milroy lived at Richmond, Surrey, where he died 11 January 1886, at the age of 81. He was buried in Kensal Green cemetery.
Milroy is the namesake of the Milroy lectureship at the Royal College of Physicians.
He left a legacy of £2,000 to the College for the endowment of a lectureship on "state medicine and public health", and subjects connected with those.
Membership
He was one of the founders and active members of the Hunterian Society of Edinburgh. During the Crimean War in 1855-1856, Milroy was a member of the sanitary commission sent out to the army. And at the end of the war, he joined John Sutherland in drawing up the commission"s report.
