John Moorhead Byres Moir M.D. C.M. (5 April 1853 – 4 July 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 was one of many future homeopaths who, as students at Edinburgh, were taught by Joseph Lister, including Alfred Midgley Cash, Alfred Edward Hawkes, William Henderson, Frederic Neild, William Cash Reed, Gilbert Dewitt Wilcox and many others.

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 was the homeopathic practitioner of Samuel Butler, Francis Bunbury Fitzgerald Campbell, Frederick Albert Theodore Delius, Alfred Bruce Douglas and Russell Gurney, Philip Arnold Heseltine, Evan Frederic Morgan, Lord Tredegar. Alfred Bruce Douglas, the lover of Oscar Wilde, was also a patient of homeopath John Moorhead Byres Moir

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

John Moorhead Byres Moir was the son of Patrick Moir Byres of Tonley (1814 – 1891) and Maria White of Quebec (d. 1900)

On 8 June 1887, Byres Moir, then at  3 Weymouth Court, 1 Weymouth Street, London, married Jessie Evelyn, daughter of Bengal Army Lieutenant Colonel John Collings Bonamy.

From Some Abiding Themes Hewn from British Homeopathic History by Peter Morrell. ‘… In contrast to devotees of high potency, for doctors like ‘… John James Drysdale… 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. The early UK homeopaths therefore comprised ‘… a remarkably able cohort of 3x men –  Stephen Yeldham, John Galley Blackley, John Moorhead Byres Moir, Washington Epps, C T Knox Shaw, etc…’ to which we can also add the names of ‘… John Epps, Paul Francois Curie, David Wilson as well as Alfred Crosby Pope, Richard Hughes, David Dyce Brown,… William Bayes, Thomas Robinson Leadam and Robert Ellis Dudgeon…’’ (A Taylor Smith, letter re Dr Borland’s Obituary, British Homeopathic Journal 50.2, (July 1961). Page 119 and page 123).

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 was a friend of Scottish writer and poet 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,

Of Interest:

Douglas Moir M.D. M.B. (1844 – 1924), cousin of John Moorhead Byres Moir, was an homeopath who was House Surgeon and Secretary at the Manchester Homoeopathic Institution on Lower Byrom Street in 1871. He qualified M.B. and M.C. in 1866, and the following year received his M.D. from the University of Aberdeen. Douglas Moir practiced in Manchester for more than 58 years, and his colleagues included Charles Thompson, whom Moir attended to during his final illness. Douglas Moir died at his home, Hale Bank, Altrincham, on 29 February 1924, aged 82.