John Sutherland (physician)

Mrs Sutherland shared their concerns about public health; she was an active member of the Ladies' Sanitary Association.

Louis Napoleon conferred him the Order of the Legion of Honour for services in producing a new International Sanitary Regulation.

With Sutherland was a leading civil engineer, Robert Rawlinson, and members of the pioneering Sanitary Department at Liverpool, who did the cleaning out of the sewers and drains.

On 25 August 1855 he came to England for consultation, and was summoned to Balmoral to inform the Queen of the steps that had been taken for the benefit of the troops.

One of these was the appointment of the barrack and hospital improvement commission, with Sidney Herbert as president and Captain (afterwards Sir) Douglas Galton, Dr. Burrell of the army medical department, and Sutherland as members.

Subsequently, Dr. Sutherland and Captain Galton visited and made reports on the Mediterranean stations, including the Ionian Islands (ib.

As a member of the Royal Commission on the Crimean War, Sutherland worked up the considerable amount of evidence for it.

[3] In 1862 the barrack and hospital improvement commission was reconstituted with the quartermaster-general as president and Sutherland as a prominent member.

This arrangement remained in force until Sutherland's retirement on 30 June 1888, when he was appointed a medical superintending inspector-general of the board of health and home office.

They shared a common philosophy, of the application of the best available science, to be applied to the problem at hand, then ongoing monitoring to ensure that the results were beneficial.

Sutherland acted sometimes as Nightingale’s research assistant, finding crucial material for her—he was a doctor and well connected internationally with public health and military experts.

Sutherland drafted some of Nightingale’s boldest statements about quality hospital care being available to the poorest—as good as that received by private patients.

Sutherland continued his beneficent work to within a few years of his death, which took place at Oakleigh, Alleyne Park, Norwood, Surrey, on 14 July 1891.