Sir Robert Hutchison, 1st Baronet, FRCP[5] (28 October 1871 – 20 April 1960) was a Scottish physician and paediatrician, and the original editor of the medical books, Clinical Methods and Food and the Principles of Dietetics.

His father was a wine merchant, who, having a good knowledge of forestry, had authored a number of papers, and was also a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

His essay on “The clinical estimation of the alkalinity of the blood” was awarded the Edinburgh University London Club Prize in August, 1895,[11] and he obtained his MD degree and MRCP (Ed) in 1896.

[1][2] Hutchison is remembered by his students for his "ability to express in concise and fastidious language his extraordinary powers of clinical observation".

Nevertheless, he was respected and loved by his students who were "entranced by his incisive comments on ward-rounds", and were attracted to "his individual method of teaching", which they found "was really in part a pose, an assumption of cynicism, that failed to hide a mind that was intellectually gay and a heart that felt deeply for all human suffering, especially the sufferings of children".

[1] In 1904 he delivered the Goulstonian lectures on anaemia of infancy to the Royal College of Physicians and in 1931 gave their Harveian Oration.

[1][2][10][13] Hutchison wrote Clinical Methods, which he first published in 1897, while working as Assistant Physician in the Royal London Hospital.

[2] In 1951, marking Dr Hutchison's 80th birthday, the Archives of Disease in Childhood, a peer reviewed medical journal, listed his 14 books and 260 other writings on paediatric subjects in its issue.

[4] One Hutchison wrote in 1953 as a petition to God: "From inability to let well alone; from too much zeal for the new and contempt for what is old; from putting knowledge before wisdom, science before art, and cleverness before common sense; from treating patients as cases; and from making the cure of the disease more grievous than the endurance of the same, Good Lord, deliver us.

"[4] Donald Paterson, a British physician who had helped to found the British Paediatric Association in 1928, and had worked with Hutchison, wrote after his death, "In Robert Hutchison Scotland presented to England a young man who was destined to become a superb physician, an eminent scholar, a great writer, a most inspiring teacher, a shrewd and gifted clinician, and above all a most kindly gentleman... (who) remained always modest and unassuming... (and) inspired real affection in those with whom he worked.

His shafts of wit sent home his teaching points and his powers of instruction inspired a large number of physicians and paediatricians ... (He was) a tall, slightly stooping, rather gaunt figure, dignified and somewhat austere, but a little sorrowful...".