Watt, ROBERT

Watt, ROBERT, bibliographer and physician, was born the son of a small farmer near Stewarton in Ayrshire in May 1774, and studied for the church at Glasgow University (1793–97). He subsequently studied medicine at Edinburgh, and was licensed in surgery and pharmacy, which arts he practised in Paisley and in Glasgow (1799–1817). At his death (12th March 1819) he was a distinguished physician, accoucheur, and lecturer on the practice of medicine at Glasgow. He wrote medical works on diabetes, consumption, and hooping-cough, and a moral work, Rules of Life; but he is best known by his valuable (though far from complete or infallible) Bibliotheca Britannica (4 vols. 4to. 1824; see BIBLIOGRAPHY), which originated in a catalogue (published 1812) of a library he gathered for the use of his students.