Burton Alexander Nicol qualified with the Conjoint Diploma in May 1899, took the DPH at Cambridge in 1902, and the FRCS in 1903. He was a student at Guy's and Charing Cross Hospitals, and was house-physician at Charing Cross and resident medical officer to the Kensington Dispensary and honorary surgeon to the Ramsgate Dispensary. Nicol served as a civil surgeon in the South African War, then as Principal Medical Officer of the Indian Immigration Board from 1907 till 1910, and as a member of the Natal Board of Health in 1910. He returned to England later that year, and in 1912 he went back to South Africa and started practice in Durban. In 1914 he joined the South African Medical Corps as a Captain and retired with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in 1924. He then practised for a time as a consulting surgeon in East London, but later moved to Johannesburg where he died in 1937. He was generally regarded as a competent surgeon and a friendly colleague, and at his death he was survived by his wife and a son and daughter.