Elizabeth Ness MacBean Ross was born in Tain in 1878. She studied medicine at Glasgow University graduating in 1901. For several years she was the local doctor on Colonsay and Oronsay and in 1907 left to go to Iran. She worked among the Bakhtiari tribesmen in the Zagros Mountains with long periods out of contact with fellow Europeans. The photo on the right shows her in Bakhtiari dress. She described her adventures there in A Lady Doctor in Bakhtiari Land. She worked her way home from Iran as a ship’s doctor, studied tropical medicine in London, went to Japan on the Glenlogan as the first female doctor on a liner and died of typhus in 1915 while working as a military doctor in Serbia. She was buried at Kragujevatz, where her dedication and courage are still greatly honoured.