Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rainy, Harry
RAINY, HARRY (1792–1876), physician, born at Criech, Sutherlandshire, on 20 Oct. 1792, was youngest son of George Rainy (d. 1810), minister of Criech, and Anne (d. 1833), daughter of the Rev. Gilbert Robertson of Kincardine. He matriculated at Glasgow University in 1806, and formed a lifelong friendship with a fellow student, John Gibson Lockhart [q. v.] He studied medicine from 1808 to 1810, when he migrated to Edinburgh and continued the study till 1812. Returning to Glasgow, he acted as clerk in the Royal Infirmary from 1812 to 1814. In May 1814 he went to Paris to work in the hospitals, and was a spectator of the commotion caused by the news of Bonaparte's return from Elba. He became acquainted with Roux, Dupuytren, Orfila, and other distinguished members of the French medical and surgical schools, which had outrun the British in some points of practice. In 1815 he returned to Glasgow, travelling by way of Metz through Germany and Belgium, crossing the field of Waterloo some weeks before the battle. In Glasgow he soon acquired a large practice. As a lecturer he taught the institutes of medicine in Glasgow University from 1832 to 1839, and the practice of medicine from 1839 to 1841. He had graduated M.D. at Glasgow in April 1833, and in 1841 was appointed to the chair of forensic medicine and medical jurisprudence in the university. He thenceforth practised as a consulting physician with much success. In 1862 he resigned his chair, and on 19 Nov. 1873 the university conferred on him the degree of LL.D. on the installation of Mr. Disraeli as rector of the university. While possessing extensive knowledge and skill as a medical practitioner, Rainy was a keen theologian, and at the time of the Scottish disruption he took a leading part on the side of the free church. He died in Glasgow on 6 Aug. 1876. On 30 Nov. 1818 he married Barbara, daughter of Captain Robert Gordon of Invercarron. She died on 8 July 1854. His eldest son, Robert Rainy, D.D. (b. 1826), principal of the New College, Edinburgh, was in 1887 moderator of the Free Church General Assembly. His second son, George (1832–1869), M.D. of Glasgow, was surgeon to the eye infirmary there, and lecturer in the university in 1868.
[Scott's Fasti, v. 334; Times, 18 Aug. 1876; Scotsman, 8 Aug. 1876; Irving's Eminent Scotsmen; British Medical Journal, August 1876; information received from Principal Rainy and Miss Christina Rainy.]