March 20th 1814 saw the birth of Dr John Goodsir in Anstruther, Fife.
Goodsir showed in 1842 that bacteria was the cause of disease and that it could be eliminated with selective poisons - 18 years before Louis Pasteur, who is usually credited with the discovery. The was the son of Dr John Goodsir, and grandson of Dr John Goodsir of Largo he was educated at the local burgh and grammar-schools and then at the university of St Andrews.
In 1830 he was apprenticed to a surgeon-dentist in Edinburgh, where he studied anatomy under the infamous Robert Knox, who bought bodies for dissection from Burke and Hare. In 1835 he joined his father in practice at Anstruther.
Three years later he communicated to the British Association a paper on the pulps and sacs of the human teeth, his researches on the whole process of dentition being at this time distinguished by their completeness; and about the same date, on the nomination of Edward Forbes, he was elected to the famous coterie called the “Universal Brotherhood of the Friends of Truth,” which comprised artists, scholars, naturalists and others, whose relationship became a potent influence in science. With Forbes he worked at marine zoology, but human anatomy, pathology and morphology formed his chief study.
In 1840 he moved to Edinburgh, where in the following year he was appointed conservator of the museum of the College of Surgeons, in succession to William Macgillivray. Much of his reputation rested on his knowledge of the anatomy of tissues. In his lectures in the theatre of the college in 1842-1843, he moved to the University of Edinburgh, becoming curator of the university museum in 1845.
More recently it has been recognised Goodsir was a pioneer in the research of the causes of disease and the connection with bacteria. An eminent professor at Sheffield university published a paper on this saying “In 1842 John Goodsir, a Scottish surgeon, showed that stomach upsets with vomiting were caused by bacteria. He then took his work a step further by finding that the bacteria, and with it the disease, could be eliminated using selective poisons. He therefore deserves recognition as the first person to successfully recognise and treat a bacterial infection.
"Pasteur was a great scientist, but the assumption that he was the first person to recognise that germs cause disease is a fallacy and does early physicians injustice. I am pleased to be able to correct this mistake and hope to restore to John Goodsir his rightful place in medical history.”
He died at Wardie, near Edinburgh, on the 6th of March 1867, aged just 52, in the same cottage in which his friend Edward Forbes died.
The character Harry Goodsir featurd in the American horror drama anthology television series, The Terror was John’s brother.
