English: Dr. John Brown's House, Rutland Street Inscribed stone on the house of Victorian author, Dr. John Brown. Now little read, but known to dog-lovers the word over, his short story, set in Edinburgh, is a sentimental tale about boyhood memories of a dog. Written in 1863, but recounting events thirty-four years earlier, the story gives a flavour of Edinburgh street-life around the time of Burke and Hare. It is historically significant for the first literary description of a mastectomy, carried out at the Edinburgh Medical School in the days before anaesthetics. Not surprisingly for its time, the tale descends into tragedy for the patient, her husband, the dog and the author - by now a doctor - who loses his canine friend.