Norman Dott

Prof Norman McOmish Dott, CBE MD FRCSE FRSE FRCCC [1] (26 August 1897 – 10 December 1973) was the first holder of the Chair of Neurological Surgery at the University of Edinburgh.

The Dott family - formerly D'Ott or possibly De Ott - were of Huguenot stock and had arrived in Scotland from the Low Countries in the late 17th century, when they settled at Cupar in Fife. Peter's father, Aitken Dott, had founded a picture-framing business in Edinburgh's South St David Street in 1842.

In 1876 the young Peter Dott joined his father in the family business - later Aitken Dott & Sons - now removed to larger premises at Castle Street. Although she had been born at Birkenhead on Merseyside, Rebecca Dott's family were Ulster Scots. Having had a very short-lived marriage in he 1880s, she had been a widow for several years when she married Peter Dott on 2 April 1894, at which time they settled in Colinton on the outskirts of Edinburgh.

Norman Dott was born at Edinburgh on 26 August 1897, the third of the five children of Peter McOmish Dott (1856–1934), a picture dealer based at 127 George Street in Edinburgh's New Town, and his wife, Rebecca Morton (1864–1917). He was educated at George Heriot's School and originally intended a career in engineering. However a serious motorcycle accident on Lothian Road, hospitalised him and left him with a permanent leg injury (also rendering him unfit for service in the First World War). The long spell in hospital re-inspired Dott and he changed his ambition to focus upon medicine rather than engineering. He studied Medicine at Edinburgh University, graduating MB in 1919. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1923. He then received a Rockefeller Travelling Scholarship, allowing him to travel to America to study further in Boston under Prof Harvey Williams Cushing.

In 1932 he began lecturing at Edinburgh University and in 1947 was given a Professorship in Neuro-Surgery (one of the first in the world). Meanwhile, he also worked in Edinburgh's Sick Children's Hospital and conducted private brain surgery from a premises in the New Town.

In 1938 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1938. His proposers were Edwin Bramwel, Arthur Logan Turner, Anderson Gray McKendrick, and William Thomas Ritchie.

During the Second World War he set up a specialist brain injuries unit at Bangour Hospital west of Edinburgh. He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for this work in 1948. In 1960 he set up a Department of Neuro-Surgery at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, one of the first such facilities under the umbrella of the National Health Service.

In 1962 he was made a Freeman of the City of Edinburgh. Edinburgh University awarded him an honorary doctorate (MD) in 1969. The Royal College of Surgeons of Canada made him an Honorary Fellow in 1973.

He retired in 1963, his chair being filled by Prof Francis Gillingham, and died in Edinburgh on 10 December 1973.

He married Margaret ("Peggy") Robertson in 1932.