{{short description|Scottish physician and writer}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox person | name = Douglas Chalmers Watson | image = Douglas Chalmers Watson.png | birth_date = {{Birth year|1870}} | birth_place = | death_date = {{Death date and age|1946|04|07|1870|df=y}} | death_place = Fenton Barns, Scotland | occupation = Physician, writer | spouse = {{Plainlist| * Mona Geddes (died 1936) * {{Marriage|Lily Brayton|1938}} }} }}
'''Douglas Chalmers Watson''' (1870 – 7 April 1946) M.D., F.R.C.P.Ed. was a Scottish physician and writer.
==Biography==
Watson was educated at George Watson's College and the University of Edinburgh.<ref name="Edinburgh">{{cite journal|year=1946|title=Obituary: Douglas Chalmers Watson|journal=Edinburgh Medical Journal|volume=53|issue=6|pages=331–332|pmc=5283457}}</ref> He graduated in 1892 and obtained the Wightman Prize in Clinical Medicine.<ref name="Edinburgh" /> He was house physician at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Edinburgh.<ref name="Edinburgh"/> His first wife was Mona Geddes.<ref name="Edinburgh"/><ref name="BMJ 1946">{{cite journal|year=1946|title=Obituary: Chalmers Watson, M.D., F.R.C.P.Ed.|journal=The British Medical Journal|url=http://europepmc.org/backend/ptpmcrender.fcgi?accid=PMC2058795&blobtype=pdf|volume=1|issue=4450|pages=629|doi=10.1136/bmj.1.4450.629|s2cid=220007241 |url-access=subscription}}</ref>
He joined the British Medical Association in 1897 and was secretary of the Section of Pharmacology and Therapeutics at the London Annual Meeting in 1916.<ref name="BMJ 1946"/> Watson was the editor of the ''Encyclopaedia Medica''. In 1900, he took his M.D. thesis on the value of bone marrow extract in the treatment of chronic skin diseases.<ref name="Edinburgh"/> He was elected F.R.C.P.Ed. in 1901 and obtained his M.D. in 1904.<ref name="BMJ 1946"/> He studied nutrition in the laboratories of Sir Edward Albert Sharpey-Schafer.<ref name="Edinburgh"/>
Watson authored the treatise "The Influence of Variations of Diet on the Tissues and Organs of the Body".<ref name="Edinburgh"/> He was appointed assistant physician to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh in 1907. Watson conducted clinical research and contributed papers on autointoxication and treating gout, rickets, rheumatism and tuberculosis.<ref name="Edinburgh"/> He founded the Patriotic Food League in 1915 to assist the public with information on the subject of food values and preparation of foods. He authored ''Food and Feeding in Health and Disease'' and ''The Book of Diet''.<ref name="Edinburgh"/>
Watson married a second time, to the actress Lily Brayton, in 1938.<ref>Barker, Clive; Trussler, Simon. (1996). ''New Theatre Quarterly'' 47: Volume 12, Part 3. Cambridge University Press. p. 228</ref> He died at Fenton Barns in 1946.<ref name="Edinburgh" />
==''Food and Feeding in Health and Disease''==
His main work ''Food and Feeding in Health and Disease'' was positively reviewed by the medical community.<ref>{{cite journal|year=1911|title=Reviewed Work: Food And Feeding In Health And Disease: A Manual Of Practical Dietetics by Chalmers Watson|journal=The British Medical Journal|volume=1|issue=2623|pages=818}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|year=1911|title=Reviewed Work: Food and Feeding in Health and Disease. A Manual of Practical Dietetics by Chalmers Watson|journal=The American Journal of Nursing|volume=11|issue=9|pages=761}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|year=1913|title=Reviewed Work: Food And Feeding In Health And Disease. A Manual Of Practical Dietetics by Chalmers Watson|journal=The British Medical Journal|volume=2|issue=2744|pages=243}}</ref><ref name="Public Health">{{cite journal|year=1913|title=Reviewed Work: Food and Feeding in Health and Disease by Chalmers Watson|journal=The Public Health Journal|volume=4|issue=7|pages=427–428}}</ref> It was described as a "valuable contribution to the literature of dietetics".<ref name="Public Health"/> It contains an appendix with a series of 22 papers by Watson and collaborators, "a record of experimental observations on the influence of diet on the structure of tissues."<ref>{{cite journal|year=1914|title=''Food and Feeding in Health and Disease. By Chalmers Watson''.|journal=Glasgow Medical Journal|url=https://archive.org/details/glasgowmedicaljo82glas/page/310/mode/2up|volume=3|issue=82|pages=310}}</ref>
==Selected publications==
*[https://archive.org/details/b21901570/page/n5/mode/2up ''Food and Feeding in Health and Disease: A Manual of Practical Dietetics''] (1910, 1913) *[https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100765519 ''The Book of Diet''] (1913) *[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5322064/?page=1 ''The "Vital" Factor in Diet: A Theory of the Nature of Vitamins''] (''Edinburgh Medical Journal'', 1931) *[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2182332/ ''Radiation in Relation to Human and Animal Nutrition. With a Theory as to the Nature of Vitamins''] (''Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine'', 1931)
==References== {{Reflist}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Watson, Douglas Chalmers}} Category:1870 births Category:1946 deaths Category:20th-century Scottish medical doctors Category:Alternative detoxification promoters Category:Alumni of the University of Edinburgh Category:Diet food advocates Category:Dietitians Category:Physicians of the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh