19 Facts About William Alison

William Pulteney Alison FRSE FRCPE FSA was a Scottish physician, social reformer and philanthropist.

William Alison was a distinguished professor of medicine at the University of Edinburgh.

William Alison served as president of the Medico-Chirurgical Society of Edinburgh, president of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, and vice-president of the British Medical Association, convening its meeting in Edinburgh in 1858.

William Alison entered the University of Edinburgh in 1803, and studied under his father's friend Dugald Stewart, and for a time was expected to follow a career in philosophy rather than medicine.

William Alison became a Professor of Medical Jurisprudence in 1820.

In 1821 William Alison was elected a member of the Harveian Society of Edinburgh and served as President in 1834.

William Alison's uncle was Professor James Gregory and his cousin was Professor William Gregory.

William Alison proposed using the Scottish Poor Law to alleviate poverty as a means of assuaging disease, but the Poor Law Commissioners supported the position of Edwin Chadwick that disease was caused by filth and miasmas.

William Alison held to the contagion theory of disease, stating its spread was facilitated through poverty and overcrowding.

William Alison argued that poverty arose from social factors, not sin and sloth, and that higher wages should be paid to workers to mitigate disease by reducing the effect of overcrowding and destitution.

In stating a case for fighting disease that appeared to be outside the province of contemporary medicine William Alison was a pioneer of "political" medicine, as well as social epidemiology and public health.

William Alison advocated using public taxes to assist widows, orphans and the unemployed poor, and criticised the establishment for ignoring those who were fit but impoverished.

William Alison was very critical of the Scottish upper class for not providing what William Alison believed to be adequate relief to the impoverished citizens of the country, while praising the English system, which had a long-established legislative framework to maintain minimum standards of relief for those suffering from poverty.

William Alison counter argued, saying that it was unrelieved poverty that truly lowered the morality of the poor, and not providing any relief not only made the impoverished more prone to contract disease, but more short-sighted and reckless.

William Alison promoted preventive social medicine and initiated a program to vaccinate children against smallpox, and he established Edinburgh's Fever Board to combat epidemics.

William Alison advocated speedy diagnosis of the ill and, where found to be contagious or infectious, he recommended fumigation and ventilation of the residence and prompt hospitalisation for the patient.

In strongly advocating government intervention to alleviate poverty as a means to combat disease, William Alison was ahead of his time but he lived to see public opinion move closer to his initiatives.

William Alison died at home, "Woodville" in Colinton on 22 September 1859.

William Alison was interred at St John's Episcopal Cemetery in Edinburgh.