Forgotten Scots innovators who changed the world

WILLIAM CULLENBorn in Hamilton in 1710, the physician and professor of medicine was best known for his innovative teaching methods.

While working at Glasgow University, he developed a process to create an artificial cooling medium in 1748. At the time, there did not appear to be much interest in applying the medium to use in commercial or home applications, so the process created little in the way of interest beyond the scientific community.

ALEXANDER CUMMINGS

Born in Edinburgh in 1733, Cummings was a mathematician and mechanic as well as a watchmaker and jeweller in London. He wrote books about watch and clock work, about the effect on roads of carriage wheels with rims of various shapes, and on the influence of gravity.

In 1775 he patented a flushing toilet that had both a water trap of standing water below the bowl and a valve in the form of an S-bend. However, it would be another 100 years before for the first flushing toilet would be commercially produced.

ROBERT WILLIAM THOMSON

Born in Stonehaven, Thomson left school at the age of 14 and was sent to stay with an uncle in South Carolina in order to learn the trade of a merchant, but returned home two years later.

He taught himself chemistry, electricity and astronomy, and after his father built a workshop for him, set about redesigning his mother's washing mangle and then built a ribbon saw. He pursued a career in engineering in London before patenting the pneumatic rubber tyre at the age of 23.

ALEXANDER MACRAE

MacRae, from the Kyle of Lochalsh, emigrated to Australia in 1910 and four years later set up a hosiery firm specialising in socks and underwear. He started concentrating on swimwear to cash in on Australia's growing beach culture and included the first figure-hugging costume in 1928. A new name for his firm, Speedo, was discovered through a staff competition.

JAMES LIND

In 1747, the Royal Navy surgeon, who was born in Edinburgh, carried out the first clinical experiments in medical history to prove that citrus fruit cured scurvy.

While serving on HMS Salisbury, Lind selected 12 men from the ship, all suffering from scurvy, and divided them into six pairs, giving each group different additions to their basic diet. Those fed citrus fruits experienced a remarkable recovery.

JAMES BLYTH

Born in Kincardineshire in 1838, Blyth was an electrical engineer and academic who carried out installed the first electricity-producing wind turbine in the garden of his cottage in his home village of Marykirk in 1887.

It was the first house in the world to have its electricity supplied by wind power and the system operated there for 25 years.