John Gillies, CVO, MC, , FRCSE, FFARCS, FRCPE, , , (6 February 1895 – 18 July 1976) was a Scottish anaesthetist, who worked at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh (RIE).

[1] With his colleague HWC ('Griff') Griffiths he pioneered the technique of high spinal anaesthesia to produce hypotension and 'bloodless' operating fields.

Gillies anaesthetised King George VI in Buckingham Palace and was made Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO) for this service.

[5] Gillies was a house physician in Cumberland Infirmary, Carlisle before entering general practice in the West Riding of Yorkshire.

The following year he returned to Edinburgh to work as an anaesthetist at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children.

In 1940 Gillies set up the Department of Anaesthetics in the RIE, the first such in Scotland with two junior anaesthetists whose training he supervised.

He determined to make anaesthetics an academic discipline in Edinburgh and recommended that anaesthetists in the RIE should have university status.

[4] Among the contributions which he made was the invention of the Gillies anaesthetic machine, thought to be the first British closed circuit apparatus.

[1] With his RIE anaesthetic colleague HWC Griffiths he popularised the technique of high spinal anaesthesia, which they had introduced to induce hypotension and to produce a 'bloodless' operating field.

[5] Gillies, with RJ Minnitt, jointly wrote the sixth and seventh editions of Textbook of Anaesthetics.

[8] in March 1949, Gillies anaesthetised King George VI for the operation of lumbar sympathectomy, performed in Buckingham Palace by his colleague Sir James Learmonth.

[5] For services in anaesthetising King George VI he was appointed Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO).

Uniquely for an anaesthetist he was awarded the Lister Victoria Jubilee Medal of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.