T Hugh Miller The final days of
Hugh Miller – self-taught geologist and popular writer – was a Victorian celebrity known throughout the UK and beyond. Here James Finlayson looks at his tragic final days and draws a lesson on the importance of separating the roles of doctor and friend
PHOTOGRAPHS: THE NATIONAL TRUST FOR SCOTLAND
Top: Hugh Miller. Left: Devonian Age fish Pterichthys milleri named after Hugh Miller Opposite: Professor James Miller
HE books of Hugh Miller are well known to the frequenters of a shrinking number of Scottish
second-hand bookshops. Innumerable editions – solid, heavy, products of the mighty Victorian Edinburgh publishing industry – sit oſten forlorn on upper shelves. Miller is still read; indeed, a surprising
number of his books have been recently republished. One volume, Te Testimony of the Rocks, first published in 1857, even has a foreword from the eminent Harvard evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould. Opening a first edition of this book, one will find on the first few pages a frontispiece featuring a magnificent photograph of Miller along with a notice that the book was published posthumously. Tere is also a dedication to JAMES MILLER, ESQ. F.R.S.E., PROFESSOR OF SURGERY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH. Tese facts considered together testify to a fascinating strand in the tragic story of Hugh Miller’s final days.
A fearful dream On a December night in 1856, Hugh Miller, writer, man of science and leader of the church arose from his bed and wrote a message to his wife. “My brain burns. I must have walked and a fearful dream rises upon me. I cannot bear the horrible thought. God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon me. Dearest Lydia, Dear Children farewell. My brain burns as the recollection grows, my dear wife farewell. Hugh Miller.” Ten using the revolver he habitually
carried, Miller ended his life. Suicide is a terrible thing. Many readers
of this article will have experience of a patient’s suicide and all will surely agree that it is one of the most difficult experiences in the life of a doctor. Some people, indeed, will have the tragedy and trauma of the suicide of a loved one. To all who knew Hugh Miller and to the many readers of his books and articles this was a shocking tragedy.
Sense of wonder Miller was one of the best known men in Scotland at that time. He was born in the town of Cromarty in Ross-shire, on the edge of, but not in, the Gaelic-speaking
12 SUMMONS
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