John Moorhead Byres Moir 1853 - 1928

John Moorhead Byres Moir 1853 - 1928 MD CM Edinburgh and London was an orthodox physician who converted to homeopathy, and who was a House Surgeon and Consulting Physician at the London Homeopathic Hospital.

Byres Moir trained at Edinburgh where he was a student of Joseph Lister alongside homeopaths Alfred Midgley Cash, Alfred Edward Hawkes, William Henderson, Frederick Neild, William Cash Reed, Gilbert Dewitt Wilcox and many others.

Byres Moir was the homeopathic practitioner of Philip Arnold Heseltine, Evan Frederic Morgan, Lord Tredegar, Alfred Bruce Douglas was also a patient of homeopath John Moorhead Byres Moir, and the lover of Oscar Wilde.

Byres Moir practiced at 1 Leinster Square and at 16 Wimpole Street, and he also built a house in Harley Street in 1910.

From _[Some Abiding Themes Hewn from British Homeopathic History](http://www.homeoint.org/morrell/articles/abiding.htm)_ by Peter Morrell. '... In contrast to devotees of high potency, for doctors like ‘… [John James ](/archives/2008/07/29/the-drysdale-family-and-homeopathy/)_[Drysdale](/archives/2008/07/29/the-drysdale-family-and-homeopathy/)… low dilutions did best and he found no advantage above the 3rd decimal…’ _(Frank Bodman, _Richard Hughes Memorial Lecture_, _British Homeopathic Journal 59,_ (1970). Page184). [Thus the 3x became the officially approved and standard tool of UK homeopathic practice from 1830 to 1900](http://www.homeoint.org/morrell/articles/abiding.htm). The early UK homeopaths therefore comprised ‘… _a remarkably able cohort of 3x men –  [Stephen Yeldham](/archives/2008/10/01/stephen-yeldham-1810-1896/), [John Galley Blackley](/archives/2008/11/21/the-blackley-surname-and-homeopathy/), John Moorhead Byres Moir, [Washington Epps](/archives/2008/07/30/the-epps-family-and-homeopathy/), [C T Knox Shaw](/archives/2009/03/27/c-t-knox-shaw-1865-1923/), etc…’ _to which we can also add the names of ‘… [John Epps](/archives/2008/07/30/the-epps-family-and-homeopathy/)_, [Paul Francois Curie](/archives/2008/07/26/paul-francois-curie-and-homeopathy/), [David Wilson](../archives/2008/10/04/david-wilson-1811-1889/) as well as [Alfred Crosby Pope](/archives/2009/03/29/alfred-crosby-pope-1830-1908/), [Richard Hughes](/archives/2008/07/04/richard-hughes-and-homeopathy/), [David Dyce Brown](/archives/2008/12/14/david-dyce-brown-1840-1910/),… [William Bayes](/archives/2008/08/05/william-bayes-and-homeopathy/), [Thomas Robinson Leadam](/archives/2008/10/04/thomas-robinson-leadam-1809-1881/) and [Robert Ellis Dudgeon](/archives/2009/05/18/archives/2009/08/29/robert-ellis-dudgeon-1820-1904/)_…’' (A Taylor Smith, _letter re Dr Borland’s Obituary_, _British Homeopathic Journal 50.2_, (July 1961). Page 119 and page 123).

Byres Moir was a colleague of William Bayes, Charles Harrison Blackley, John Galley Blackley, George Henry Burford, James Compton Burnett, David Dyce Brown, John Henry Clarke, H A Clifton Harris, Paul Francois Curie, Robert Ellis Dudgeon, John Epps, Washington Epps, Giles Forward Goldsborough, Clarence Granville Hey, James Johnstone, Richard Hughes, Thomas Robinson Leadam, Edwin Awdas Neatby, Alfred Crosby Pope, Mathias Roth, C T Knox Shaw, Harold Wynne Thomas, Charles Edwin Wheeler,  David Wilson, James Craven Wood Stephen Yeldham and many others.

Byres Moir’s patients included Samuel Butler, Francis Bunbury Fitzgerald Campbell, Frederick Albert Theodore Delius, Alfred Bruce Douglas and Russell Gurney.

As a member of the British Homeopathic Association, Byres Moir presented a gold signet ring of Frederick Hervey Foster Quin and a miniature of Samuel Hahnemann, copy by Caroline Soye (1836) to Richard Haehl in memorium for Samuel Hahnemann.

Byres Moir the homeopathic physician and friend of William Sharp:

After several weeks in North Africa, they crossed to Sicily and stayed for awhile in Taormina, the beautiful old town set high above the Bay of Naxos with grand views of Mt Etna. This was the first of many winter visits to Taormina and the surrounding area. Returning to England and Phenice Croft at the end of February, William Sharp once again became absorbed in his writing.

Mrs. Sharp listed some of the many guests who visited them at Phenice Croft during the spring: Richard Whiteing, Mona Caird, Alice Corkran, George Cotterell, the Richard Le Galliennes, Roden Noel, Percy White, Byres Moir, the Frank Rinders, R. A. Streatfield, Laurence Binyon, Elizabeth’s mother and her brother, Robert Farquharson Sharp, and Mary Sharp, William Sharp’s sister, who would soon begin to serve the essential function of copying William Sharp’s Fiona Macleod letters in what became known as the Fiona Macleod handwriting.

Byres Moir was a friend of  John J. Grace, a physician who was born in New Zealand, practiced in Hawaii, and then settled in Harley Street in 1912 as an electrotherapist, before moving to Jamaica to become a banker:

John J Grace was a keen sportsman who loved to take long hikes right up to the end of his life. In the old days in England one of his closest companions was the famous homeopathic physician, Dr. Byres Moir, with whom he spent many a happy afternoon on the golf course.

Byres Moir wrote a paper on Pneumonia in Children for Homeopathic Pamphlets in 1848, The Diseases of the Eye for The Monthly Homeopathic Review in 1884,  Appendicitis in The North American Journal of Homeopathy in 1898, on Ulcerative Endocarditis published in The Hahnemannian Monthly in 1899,