George Sandison Brock, medical practitioner, qualified as Bachelor of Medicine and Master in Surgery at the University of Edinburgh in 1879 and that same year published a paper on a two-headed sartorius muscle in the Journal of Anatomy and Physiology. He was licensed as a medical practitioner in the Cape Colony in August 1883, practised at Herschel in 1884, but after a few years moved to the South African Republic (Transvaal), where he was admitted as a medical practitioner in 1888. In 1892 he qualified as Doctor of Medicine (MD) at the University of Edinburgh with a thesis entitled On the bilharzia haematobia, for which he was awarded a gold medal. After his return to South Africa in 1892 he read a paper on his thesis topic before the Transvaal Medical Society. The paper was not published, as it formed part of his thesis. He subsequently published two papers on bilharzia in The Lancet (1893) and the Journal of Pathology and Bacteriology (1894). He settled in Rustenburg on his return, and practised there until at least 1897. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1893.

Brock is credited with the earliest record of animal poisoning due to "gifblaar" (Dichapetalum cymosum). In 1890 he sent specimens of the plant from the vicinity of Pretoria to P. MacOwan*, Colonial Botanist of the Cape Colony.

By 1907, and again in 1915, he resided in Rome, Italy. However, he is also recorded as moving to the United States in 1912. He returned to Italy in 1927, went back to the United States the next year, and finally settled in Argentina in 1933.

List of sources:

Cape of Good Hope Government Gazette, 9 January 1885. Government Notice No. 1295, 1884: List of licensed medical practitioners in the Cape Colony, corrected up to the 31st December, 1884.

FamilySearch: George Sandison Brock. https://www.familysearch.org/search/record/results?q.givenName=George Sandison&q.surname=Brock

Google scholar. http://scholar.google.co.za Publications by G.S. Brock.

Henning, M.W. Animal diseases in South Africa (2 vols). Central News Agency, 1932.

Medical and pharmacy register for the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, 1893, 1907.

Melle, B.G. The Transvaal Medical Society. South African Medical Journal, 1937, Vol. 11, pp. 217-220.

Pietermaritzburg Archives Repository, Vol. NMC 34: [List of medical practitioners, dentists, and chemists and drugists in the Cape Province, as on 31 December 1915].

South African Medical Directory for 1897. Cape Town: Cape Times, 1897.

Staats-almanak der Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek, 1896 (pp. 96-100) and 1898 (pp. 86-93): Naamlijst van de geadmitteerde genees-, heel- en verloskundigen... Pretoria: Staatsdrukkery.

Staats Courant der Z.A. Republiek, 2 April 1890, p. 298, Gouvernements Kennisgeving No. 90: Erratum [Lijst van toegelaten geneeskundigen...].

Compiled by: C. Plug

Last updated: 2023-10-19 08:49:21