[John William Struthers, President of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.] Autograph Letter Signed and two Typed Letters Signed to Professor David Waterston of St Andrews, discussing golf and other matters in a lightly-humorous style.

Struthers served as a major in the Royal Army Medical Corps during the Great War. He was a pioneer in the use of local anaesthetic, and wrote a well-regarded work on the topic. He was President of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh from 1941 to 1943. Waterston was Bute Professor of Anatomy at the University of St Andrews from 1914 to 1942. In 1913, while Professor of Anatomy at King's College, London, he was the first authority to debunk the Piltdown Man hoax. The three items are in fair condition, lightly aged, with slight ruckling and aging. All three are folded for postage. Each letter is signed ‘J. W. Struthers’. ONE (TLS, 20 March 1941): 2pp, 4to. A long letter, single-spaced. He has been ‘at East Fortune where we were waiting expectantly for work which never came except in the form of a handful of army waste, if I may call it so’. While there he heard news of Waterston’s illness and recovery ‘from a Miss Hudson’. He complains that ‘Occasionally a little news comes through about old friends but it is scanty’, and would like to hear about his ‘boys and their doings’, having ‘the very pleasantest recollections of the times I spent with your two as house surgeons. Our association was, to me, wholly delightful with possibly one very slight disappointment. They both played golf much better than I did.’ He would like to ask him ‘about the G. M. C. and about teaching in general’. He gives some personal news and states ‘We still have a certain number of mutual acquaintances left to gossip about so that if an opportunity arises I look forward to pleasant exchanges.’ TWO (TLS, 5 April 1941): 1p, 4to. He and his wife are thrilled at the thought of spending a night at the Waterstons’. ‘The only difficulty in the way is that I am in the course of arranging to take over wards in the Royal again and shall probably begin about the 15th, so that I shall be rather tied. I think, however, that I am now a big enough swell to be called away for a day to Fife’. He describes possible travel arrangements and brings the subject back to golf: ‘I may tell you that I played a round over no 1 Gullane this afternoon in a piercing north easterly, carrying my own clubs, feeling that in spite of the trying weather we are having I had better find out whether I could stand up a round or not. The result did not produce a feeling of wild optimism but, on the other hand, a 2 hole lead on the 18th green left an impression of quiet confidence which is reassuring.’ THREE (ALS, 10 August 1941): 2pp, landscape 12mo. He is sending a ‘pleasing letter from D. G.’, showing him to be ‘in great form’; and also warns Waterston that he ‘played my first golf since May yesterday afternoon and I wish to warn you that I am still going strong and I should think about 3 strokes better than on the day when we last met’. Otherwise he is ‘greatly perturbed. One of my friends has entrusted himself to an Osteopath - In ordinary life he is quite intelligent. Another has pinned his faith to a homeopath - in ordinary life he passes as a scientific man. A third friend has turned Roman Catholic and now I am ondering how we can possibly win the war!’