James Learmonth was born on 23 March 1895 at Gatehouse-of-Fleet, in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, the elder son of William Learmonth and Kathleen Macosquin Craig. His father, a native of Edinburgh, was the headmaster of the parish school of Girthon, having previously spend many years in Orkney. His mother came from Coleraine, Northern Ireland. Learmonth's second Christian name, with its Scandinavian spelling, was used by his family and his contemporaries for many years. His scholastic training began under favourable auspices, for his father was a typical Scots dominie with a wide range of scholarship, and gave him by his example and influence a powerful intellectual stimulus. He continued his education at Kilmarnock Academy, and in April 1913 he entered the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Glasgow. His medical studies were interrupted by the first world war in which he saw active combatant service, having been commissioned to the King's Own Scottish Borderers. A gruelling period in France was followed by a tour of duty as officer-in-charge of the Anti-Gas School, Scottish Command. He returned to the University of Glasgow in October 1918 graduating MB ChB with Honours in June 1921; he gained the Brunton Memorial Prize as the most distinguished graduate of the year. After holding the posts of house physician and house surgeon at the Western Infirmary, Glasgow, he was appointed assistant to Professor Archibald Young, first at the Anderson College of Medicine and later at Glasgow University. In the interval, during the year 1924-1925, he made his first visit to the United States, having been elected to a Rockefeller Fellowship of the Medical Research Council to be spent at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota. Here he came under the aegis of Dr Alfred W Adson in the section of neurosurgery, an experience which was to influence much of his surgical life. Returning to Scotland he obtained his ChM degree with high commendation in 1927 with a thesis on the pathology of spinal tumours, and in the following year his FRCS Edinburgh. This was succeeded by an invitation from Dr Will Mayo to join the permanent staff of the Mayo Clinic. From 1928 to 1932 his work was concentrated on his chosen specialty, and he was appointed Associate Professor of Neurological Surgery in the University of Minnesota. Much time was also spent in research, mainly on the innervation of the bladder. His interest was greatly aroused in the role of surgery of the sympathetic nervous system in treatment of peripheral vascular disease and pelvic dysfunction. In October 1932 he was appointed to the Regius Chair of Surgery in the University of Aberdeen in succession to Sir John Marnoch. He remained a faithful alumnus of the Mayo Clinic, however, and was gratified when some thirty years later, in 1964, he received a Mayo Centennial Outstanding Achievement Award. In Aberdeen he still retained his special interest in surgical neurology but his clinical range was widely extended, both in teaching and in practice, to include all fields of surgery. He became increasingly involved also in the tasks of administration and medical school planning at Foresterhill, the new home of the Aberdeen School. In 1935 he was honorary surgeon to HM The King in Scotland. He was Vice-President of the Section of Surgery at the Annual Meeting of the British Medical Association that year, and President of the Section in 1939. In 1939 he succeeded Sir David Wilkie as Professor of Systematic Surgery in the University of Edinburgh. The onerous duties which now confronted Learmonth, especially anxious to justify his election to this chair, were not lessened by the outbreak of war which considerably disrupted the work of his department. Learmonth and his depleted staff made an important contribution to the care of the wounded by organising a unit at Gogarburn Hospital for the treatment of peripheral nerve and vascular injuries, as well as meeting the demands of the civilian population at the Royal Infirmary. For his wartime services he was appointed CBE in 1945. In 1946 he took over the Regius Chair of Clinical Surgery vacated by Sir John Fraser. As the holder of both Edinburgh chairs he was fully engaged in teaching and administration as well as his own practical surgery. He organised the rapidly-developing units in vascular, thoracic, paediatric, plastic, and urological surgery, and he instituted, as a forum for surgical discussion, a Saturday morning departmental meeting, which has become a regular feature of the Edinburgh scene and a valuable training ground for young surgeons. He was elected President of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland in 1948. In that year he was called in to attend King George VI at Buckingham Palace. On 12 March 1949, assisted by James Paterson Ross and others, he carried out a successful lumbar sympathectomy for the relief of impaired circulation of the King's right leg. He later received the accolade of KCVO at the Sovereign's hands. In 1950 he was made a Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur. In 1951 he was appointed a member of the Medical Research Council and in the same year was awarded the Lister Medal "in recognition of his distinguished contribution to surgical science". In 1954 he made a tour of Australia as a Sims Travelling Professor. His international reputation was attested by his election to Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and of the American College of Surgeons in 1949, of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in 1954, and of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow in 1954. In addition he was made, *honoris causa*, a Doctor of Medicine of the University of Oslo in 1947, a Doctor of Laws of the Universities of Glasgow (1949), St Andrews (1956), and Edinburgh (1965). He was a member or an honorary member of many surgical societies including the International Surgical Society, the Academies of Surgery of Paris, of Lyons, of Belgium, and of Denmark, and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh. In September 1956 he decided to retire from Edinburgh University. He had found the pace becoming too fast and the strain increasingly severe. He chose to live in the pleasant village of Broughton, in Peebleshire, resisting the call to return to his native Galloway. Now within convenient reach of both Edinburgh and Glasgow he was able to indulge in the quiet pleasures of the countryside, tending his modest garden with scientific care and reading the classics of English and ancient literature, biographies and history. From 1960 to 1966 he served as Assessor of the General Council of the Court of the University of Glasgow, an appointment which gave him much satisfaction. He died on 27 September 1967, of bronchial carcinoma, at the age of seventh-two and was cremated privately in Edinburgh. He was survived by his wife, Charlotte Newell Bundy of St Johnsbury, Vermont, USA whom he first met at the Mayo Clinic and married in 1925. There were two children, Jean Katherine Bundy born 1929, and James William Frederick born 1939. Learmonth's literary output was considerable; 118 papers stood in his name as author or co-author. The impressive list of his publications covered a wide range but were mainly concerned with his specialties, vascular and neurological surgery. Notable amongst his contributions were the Heath Clark Lectures (1947) on the *Contribution of surgery to public health*, the Harveian Oration on the *Surgery of the spleen* (1951) and the Linacre Lecture on the *Fabric of surgery* (1953). He was the MacEwan Lecturer in 1956 and the John Fraser Lecturer in 1961. In 1954 he delivered the Stephen Paget Lecture on the *Surgeon's debt to animal experiment*. Learmonth had an intellectual appearance, studious and alert, not tall but of sturdy physique; purposeful, quiet-spoken with a quick wit and a dry humour. His eyes had a quizzical, if at times a searching and slightly disapproving look, often modified by a shy disarming smile. If under stress he seemed austere and even brusque, in his relaxed moments he had a boyish gaiety and was warm-hearted and kind. He was held to be supremely competent as a surgeon of the academic type, his skill being based on his profound knowledge of anatomy and pathology and his wide scholarship. Meticulous and painstaking to a degree, he was careful and delicate in the handling of human tissue. He was gentle, reassuring and courteous to his patients. He was a fine teacher and gave much encouragement to research projects, not only in the subject under investigation but on the literary standard to be attained on publication; if his comments were sometimes outspoken, they were always fair. He maintained the highest ethical standards of the profession. His hobbies were few and he never indulged actively in sports, but he played an occasional game of golf; he had the rare pleasure once of doing a hole in one at Spey Bay. He also enjoyed watching cricket. When pressed to contribute his "scientific philosophy" to a Mayo Clinic publication in the year of his death, he summed it up characteristically by quoting the principles which Francis Bacon declared should guide the ideal scientist. To these he added Sydenham's comment that "he had weighed in a nice and scrupulous manner whether it be better to serve men or to be praised by them" and, as Learmonth wrote, "decided on the former". Selected publications: Leptomengiomas (endotheliomas) of the spinal cord. *Brit J Surg* 1927, 14, 397. The innervation of the bladder. *Proc Roy Soc Med* 1932, 25, 24. The surgery of the sympathetic nervous system. *Brit J Surg* 1937, 15, 426. *The contribution of surgery to preventive medicine*. Heath Clark Lectures, 1949. London, 1951. *The fabric of surgery*. Linacre Lecture, 1952. *The Eagle*, 1953, 55, 119. *A search for similarities*. Macewen Memorial Lecture. Glasgow, 1956. *Surgery and the community*. Maurice Bloch Lecture. Glasgow, 1960.