Born at Edinburgh 16 March 1853, the second son and second child of James Cathcart, wine merchant of Leith, and his wife, nee Weir. He was educated at Loretto School and took an arts course at the University of Edinburgh, where he graduated MA in 1873, and then began to study medicine. He acted as resident surgeon at the Royal. Infirmary to Thomas Annandale, FRCS in 1878, and in 1882 took over the management of the anatomical department at Surgeons' Hall, Edinburgh. He resigned this position in 1885, when he was appointed extra-academical lecturer on surgery. He was elected assistant surgeon to the Royal Infirmary in 1884, was surgeon from 1901 to 1916, and was made consulting surgeon in 1918. In 1893 he was awarded conjointly the Liston Victoria jubilee prize at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, where he also lectured on surgery and was conservator of the museum. When the territorial force was established in 1908 he received a commission as lieutenant-colonel *á la suite*, and when war broke out in 1914 he organized the surgical side of the 2nd Scottish General Hospital until he was appointed chief surgeon at the military hospital, Bangour. He held this post until 1919, when he became surgeon to the Edenhall hospital for limbless soldiers. For his services he was created CBE (military). He represented the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh on the board of management for the triple qualification from 1921 to 1926. He married Miss Tait on 10 September 1885, who survived him with three daughters, his only son having died of wounds during the war. He died at Edinburgh on 22 February 1932. Cathcart was a popular and excellent teacher; as a surgeon, good, careful, but slow. He was endowed with considerable mechanical skill. He invented a freezing microtome which was simple and effective, and a sterilizer which was cheap and easily worked, and he adapted Sprengel's pump to drain the bladder after suprapubic operations. He also invented a simple apparatus to obtain extension of the lower limb during operation and showed how papier-maché casts could be superposed to give impressions of various layers of the body. He was a good sportsman, was captain of the rugby team at Loretto and played three times for Scotland against England. A deeply religious man, his conscientiousness and devotion to duty were almost quixotic. Throughout his life he was a practical sociologist and in memory of his son, who was killed in Mesopotamia, he founded a play centre for the slum children of Edinburgh. His younger brother, George Clark Cathcart, MD (1860-1951), was a distinguished laryngologist in London (*The Times*, 6 January 1951, p8f). Publications:- *A surgical handbook*, with F M Caird. London, 1889; 17th ed 1916. *Descriptive catalogue of the anatomical and pathological specimens in the museum of the RCS, Edinburgh,* vol 1. *The skeleton and organs of motion*. Edinburgh, 1893. *The essential similarity of innocent and malignant tumours*. Bristol, 1907. *Requisites and methods in surgery*, with J N Jackson Hartley. Edinburgh, 1928. Translation of A Henle, *Conservative treatment of tubercular joint disease*. Edinburgh,1900. Edited *The Edinburgh Hospital Reports* 1893, 1.