Brilliant Scots have been behind some of the world’s most ingenious, lifesaving and life enhancing inventions.

Where would we be without the telephone – courtesy of Alexander Bell – or James Watt’s steam engine which kickstarted the Industrial Revolution?

From medical advances – chloroform’s anaesthetic benefits established by Edinburgh’s James Young Simpson in the mid-1800s and, years later, penicillin by Ayrshire-born Alexander Fleming – to the everyday essential of the humble raincoat courtesy of Charles Mackintosh’s bonded cotton fabric, Scots led the way.

Alexander Fleming , the Scottish microbiologist who discovered penicillin

But some great Scottish inventions are better known than others.

Efforts are now underway to have Clydeside engineer Alexander Stewart recognised as the father of air conditioning: his Thermotank system devised in 1898 preceded that of the American who is typically given the honour of inventing it.

However, many years earlier, Hamilton-born chemist, physician and agriculturist William Cullen was demonstrating the effect of refrigeration at Glasgow University in 1748, by boiling ethyl ether in a partial vacuum. The arrival of the electric motor would see his refrigeration method finally used in the production of fridges and freezers.

Road users have John Loudon McAdam, who gave his name to Tarmac, to thank for replacing bumping cobbles with a smooth surface.

While two Scots claimed to have invented the inflatable rubber tyre, sparking a legal fight, credit eventually went to veterinary surgeon John Boyd Dunlop in the 1880s.

A Scot even gave the world the pedal bicycle.  Dumfriesshire blacksmith Kirkpatrick Macmillan, born in Keir in 1812, developed a pedal-driven bicycle made of wood with iron-rimmed wooden wheels.

He may also have been the first person to knock someone down while riding a bike: in 1842 it was reported that a Dumfriesshire gentleman “bestride a velocipede … of ingenious design” knocked over a pedestrian in the Gorbals for which he was fined five shillings.

At work, the fax machine – once ubiquitous in offices the world over – was thanks to Alexander Bain, a Caithness farmhand’s son who turned his skill to making clocks and instruments. He developed the world’s first fax machine in 1846.

And police detectives have Scottish surgeon Dr Henry Faulds, from Beith in Ayrshire, to thank. He was working in Japan in 1880, when, while examining fingerprints left on ancient clay fragments when he became convinced the patterns he saw were unique to each individual.

His idea that recording and analysing fingerprints could help catch criminals was scoffed at for years before finally being adopted.

Scottish surgeon Dr Henry Faulds realised the importance of fingerprints in fighting crime

Brechin-born Robert Watson-Watt, a descendant of the inventor of the steam engine James Watt, secretly developed an object-detection system using radio waves during the Second World War.

His radar system was used to track aircraft during the Battle of Britain, while the technology he developed would later be used to create the electric microwave oven.

Lord Kelvin, aka Glasgow University academic William Thomson, discovered there was a lower limit to temperature, which he called absolute zero. His rescaling of temperature to start at this point (-273C) was called the Kelvin Scale.

But he also invented an instrument called a mirror galvanometer which led to the installation of the first trans-Atlantic telegraph cable.

Edinburgh-born 18th century watchmaker Alexander Cumming is to thank for the S-trap flush toilet which uses standing water to prevent sewer gases travelling back up the pipework and into buildings.

There are, of course, many famous Scottish innovations and inventions in the world of science and medicine: Dolly the Sheep, the world's first cloned mammal was created in 1996 by a team of experts at the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh

Less well known is Edinburgh-based physician Alexander Wood who invented the hypodermic syringe in 1853.

George Cleghorn, an 18th century doctor, discovered quinine, from the bark of the cinchona tree, could cure malaria. He also inadvertently gave the world gin and tonic: the quinine ‘tonic water’ was so bitter, it was washed down with a slug of gin.

Parents to be around the globe have Professor Ian Donald, born in Paisley, to thank for the ultrasound, and heart patients owe a debt of gratitude to Uddingston-born Sir James Black who came up with Propranolol, the beta-blocker that manages abnormal heart rhythms and has saved millions of lives.

Before John Logie Baird invented the first publicly demonstrated colour television system, entertainment for some was courtesy of Edinburgh -based physicist Sir David Brewster’s 1815 invention, the kaleidoscope.

East Lothian-born carpenter John Broadwood, meanwhile, changed the world of music with his foot-pedal for sustaining the pianoforte’s notes. It led to the grand piano in 1777.
Manufacturing was driven forward by the steam hammer, invented in 1837 by Scot James Nasmyth, while workers and hikers around the globe have physicist and chemist Sir James Dewar to thank for the vacuum flask.

Scots have also given the world much-loved foods and drinks: Irn Bru, of course, but also Bovril – created by John Lawson Johnston from Roslin, Midlothian.

Lime juice was found by Edinburgh doctor James Lind to help avoid scurvy among sailors in 1753, and later bottled as the first fruit cordial by Lachlan Rose, a Leith shipbuilder’s son who figured out a way to preserve the limes in a concentrated drink.

Forres man Sir Alexander Grant, meanwhile, is to thank for coming up with one of the nation’s favourite treats while working for an Edinburgh biscuit-maker, Robert McVitie – the digestive biscuit.