Thomas Aitchison Latta (1796 – 19 October 1833) was a medical pioneer who was responsible for the introduction of the saline solution ("saline drip") methodology into the treatment of patients. Life Thomas Latta was born at Jessfield, in the fishing village of Newhaven near Edinburgh. His father Alexander Latta acquired the property in 1796. No birth records have been found probably because the Latta family were members of a dissenting congregation The Associate Congregation of Leith, and as such would not feature in the baptism records of established Church. His maternal grandfather is thought to be Rev Thomas Aitchison of Leith. He attended the University of Edinburgh, graduating MD in 1819 with a thesis about scurvy. Latta set up in medical practice in the port of Leith in 1822. He continued to live at Jessfield, which he inherited from his father Alexander Latta (d.1807), before moving to Leith. During his time in practice in Leith he lived at Bridge Street, Sandport Street, Constitution Street and finally at 15 Charlotte Street. Saline solution drip This was initially introduced by Latta in 1832 during a cholera epidemic which had reached Britain in the previous year and was killing huge numbers of people. Latta was the leader of a group of three Leith doctors, the other two being Dr Thomas Craigie and Dr Robert Lewins. Whilst all three were based in Leith the experiments were undertaken on five patients in the Edinburgh Cholera Hospital on Drummond Street, a building which was the original Old Surgeons' Hall and which had been bought by the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. The value of isolating such patients in specialist hospitals had been learned early in the epidemic. Although his results were both remarkably good and effective in saving human lives, the research appeared to thereafter be forgotten for 70 years before rematerialising in wider use. Intravenous theory had existed prior to this date but had never been successfully put into practice. The critical aspect of Latta's theory was the nature of the liquid, correctly speculating that a salt solution could substitute for blood. Basing his experiments on the theories of Dr William Brooke O'Shaughnessy, Latta had equally observed that cholera victims lost a huge proportion of water content from their blood. Replenishment of this in combination with "oxygenating salts" were seen as key to patient recovery. The theory was then put into practice. Latta at first tried