stated in the last volume, the College of Physicians in Edinburgh was incorporated in 1681;7 and the old College of Surgeons got a royal charter in 1694, and at the same time a grant from the Town Council of unclaimed dead bodies. The anatomical theatre was opened in 1697. Thus the incorporated physicians and surgeons began to form a medical school outside the University; and afterwards some of the members of these bodies were taken into the University as professors. In this way the great medical school of Edinburgh arose, and it has continued to be surrounded by extra-mural teachers, some of whom were highly distinguished members of the profession.

In 1705, Robert Elliot, a member of the College of Surgeons, was elected by his fellow-members as the special teacher of anatomy; and the Town Council recognised his appointment under the title of Professor of Anatomy in the University, and for his encouragement granted him a salary of £15: thus Elliot became the first Professor of Anatomy in the University of Edinburgh. The teaching of chemistry was recognised by the University in 1713, when James Craufurd, a pupil of Boerhaave, was appointed Professor of Medicine and Chemistry. He was succeeded in 1726, by Andrew Plummer, a graduate of Leyden and a pupil of Boerhaave. He lectured ably upon chemical pharmacy for twenty-nine years. He was the author of the preparation known under the name of Plummer's Pill; and it was recorded that he was a man of varied knowledge and accomplishments. The study of botany was recognised by the University authorities in 1676; and Dr. Charles Preston, the second professor of this useful branch of knowledge, was appointed in 1706. The following year he issued an advertisement in the Edinburgh Courant to this effect: "Dr. Preston teaches his lessons of botany in the Physic Garden at Edinburgh, the months of May, June, July, and August, 1707. Therefore, all gentlemen and others, who are desirous to learn the said science of botany, may repair to the said garden, where attendance will be given." Botany as a subject for lectures in a class-room scarcely then existed.

John Munro, a military surgeon, who had served in King William's army, retired and settled in Edinburgh early in the century, and was president of the College of Surgeons in 1712. He had an only son, Alexander Munro, who was carefully educated by his father. In 1717, young Munro, at the age of twenty, was sent to study

7 Mackintosh's Hist. Civil. Scot., Vol. III., p. 369.

anatomy under Cheselden, in London; subsequently he proceeded to Paris, where he studied anatomy under M. Bouquet, and attended classes in the hospitals; whence to Leyden, and placed himself under Boerhaave, who gave a favourable report of his pupil's progress. He returned to Scotland in 1719, and was admitted a member of the College of Surgeons.

In January, 1720, Alexander Munro was appointed professor of anatomy in the University of Edinburgh, and soon after commenced. lecturing in the surgeons' theatre. In 1726, Drs. Andrew Sinclair and John Rutherford were appointed professors of the theory and practice of medicine; and thus the faculty then consisted of a chair of anatomy, three professors of medicine, a professor of chemistry, and a professor of botany. These professors were appointed for life, and this was the first regular establishment of the medical faculty in the University of Edinburgh.

Munro started his course of lectures with a class of fifty-seven students, and the class gradually increased in numbers. For the first ten years the average number was sixty-seven, for the second one hundred and nine, and for the third one hundred and forty-seven : students joined his class from all parts of Scotland, England and Ireland. His course of instruction was a comprehensive one, and embraced surgery as well as anatomy; and he illustrated his teaching by dissections of the human body, and of animals, birds, and fishes, for comparison. After explaining the anatomy of each part, he treated of its diseases, especially the organs which required operations, and concluded his course with a few lectures on physiology. He delivered this course continuously for thirty-eight years, and spoke without notes except for the names and dates.

In 1726, he published his work on The Human Bones, which passed through eight editions in his lifetime, and was translated into most of the European languages; and it contributed much to raise the reputation of the Edinburgh medical school. The whole of his writings have been collected and published in one large volume. It was also mainly by the exertions of Monro and Provost Drummond that the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh was erected, endowed, and incorporated, the foundation stone of which was laid in 1738. When it was opened Monro attended it and delivered lectures on surgery; the clinical lectures were begun in 1746.

8

8 Monro was the originator of the Medical Society, formed in 1732, for the publication of papers on medical subjects, and he was appointed its secretary,

In 1758, Dr. Monro resigned the chair of anatomy to his son, and devoted himself for the remaining nine years of his life to practice, and to lecturing in the Infirmary as one of the clinical professors. He died in 1767, in the seventieth year of his age. His merits have been summed up, by a well qualified Professor thus:

"He had family and friends influential and plenty, but the work he had to do was of a kind at which friends could only stand and look on. He had to do a new thing in Edinburgh: to teach anatomy, and to provide for the study of it, in a town of then only thirty thousand inhabitants, and in a half-civilised and politically disturbed country; he had to gather in students, to persuade others to join him in teaching, and to get an infirmary built. All this he did, and at the same time established his fame not only as a teacher but as a man of science, and gave a name to the Edinburgh school which benefited still more the generation which followed him. This really great and good man, therefore, well earned the title often given him, of father of the Edinburgh medical school." 9

A chair of midwifery was regularly established in the University in 1739 Mr. Robert Smith being appointed by the town council "professor of midwifery in this city's College, with the same privileges and immunities which the other professors in the said College do enjoy, or that are known to appertain to a professor of midwifery in any other well-regulated city or place." It is well known that the institution of this chair, like most of the other chairs connected with medicine in Edinburgh, originated with the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons. The Town Council had before, in 1726, on the recommendations of the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons, appointed Mr. Joseph Gibson "professor of midwifery in this city, with power

and the editor of the six volumes of medical essays and observations which it published. In 1739, on the suggestion of Maclaurin, the mathematician, its scope was extended to subjects of philosophy and literature; but its meetings were interrupted for some years by the Rebellion. In 1752, they were renewed, and, under the name of The Philosophical Society of Edinburgh, the first volume of its Transactions was published in 1754, the second in 1756, and the third in 1771; but in 1782, a scheme was proposed for the establishment of a society on a wider plan for the culture of every branch of science and taste; and the Royal Society of Edinburgh, which included all the members of the Philosophical Society, and many other eminent men, was formed and incorporated by royal charter in 1783.

Professor Struthers, Historical Sketch of the Edinburgh Anatomical School, p. 25 (1867); compare Hamilton's History of Medicine, Vol. II., pp. 296-299.

to him to profess and teach the said art, in as large extent as it is taught in any city or place where this profession is already instituted." But Gibson had no chair in the University, he was merely appointed to teach in the city.10 A separate chair of materia medica was instituted in 1768; and a chair of natural history was established by the Crown in 1767.

Dr. Cullen and Dr. Black contributed greatly to raise and to maintain the reputation of the Edinburgh medical school, of the teaching and discoveries of the latter, I have already spoken in the last chapter. Dr. Cullen was born at Hamilton on the 15th of April, 1710; his father was a writer, and acted as factor to the Duke of Hamilton. He received the rudiments of education at the Grammar School of Hamilton, and afterward studied at the University of Glasgow. He was apprenticed with Mr. John Paisley, a practising doctor in Glasgow: to serve an apprenticeship was then almost the only way in which a knowledge of medicine could be ob tained in Scotland. His master, though engaged in a large practice, had collected an extensive and valuable medical library; and Cullen fully availed himself of the advantages which it presented. When his medical studies were completed at Glasgow, in the end of 1729, he went to London, with the object of obtaining some situation in which he might have opportunities of acquiring a practical knowledge of his profession. He obtained an appointment as surgeon to a merchant ship engaged in trading to the West Indies; and during her voyage she remained for six months at Porto Bello, and this and other circumstances connected with the voyage gave him an opportunity of seeing many new scenes and peculiarities of life and manners. After returning from the West Indies, he remained for some time in London, and attended the shop of an apothecary in Henrietta Street. At this time he seems to have specially directed his attention to materia medica.

He returned to Scotland about the end of the year 1731, and was invited by Captain Cleland to live in his family and attend to the health of his son, in the parish of Shotts, near Hamilton. This was a very good locality for Dr. Cullen to commence the practice of his profession. After practising here for about two years, he resolved to devote his attention entirely to medical studies for some time, preparatively to starting as a practitioner in Hamilton. With this

10 Burgh Records of Edinburgh; Professor A. R. Simpson's Introductory Lecture on the History of the Chair of Midwifery, etc., pp. 9-10..

view he went to the village of Rothbury, in Northumberland, where he lived with a dissenting clergyman, and chiefly occupied himself in the study of philosophy and general literature, which would partly account for the wide and accurate knowledge of the history of philosophic thought which appears in his writings.

In 1734, he entered the University of Edinburgh and attended the medical classes for two years. On finishing his courses at Edinburgh, in the spring of 1736, he commenced business as a surgeon in Hamilton; and in a short time he obtained a good practice. Soon after his settlement in Hamilton, Dr. Cullen became the friend and the medical preceptor of the well-known Dr. William Hunter, whose genius and love of study were so congenial with his own; and their friendship continued till the death of Dr. Hunter in 1783. Dr. Hunter retained to the end of his life a warm feeling of gratitude for Cullen, and never omitted an opportunity of acknowledging how much he owed to him. Dr. Cullen removed from Hamilton to Glasgow in 1744, where he had a wider sphere for the exercise of his genius and his great talents. He thought that a medical school could be established in Glasgow, and his foresight was well founded.

He applied to the authorities of the University for leave to deliver lectures on the theory and practice of medicine, chemistry, and botany, so bold and comprehensive was the grasp of principles which he had attained. The authorities acceded to his request, and his first courses of lectures were delivered in the University of Glasgow in 1746; and they mark an era in the history of medicine in Scotland. In the first place, he laid aside the use of Latin in the composition and delivery of his lectures, which appeared to many a rash and unpardonable innovation; in the second, he had the courage and discrimination to reject the use of the Iustitutions and Aphorisms of Boerhaave as text-books, which were then generally used in the medical schools of Europe; in the third, he struck out new lines himself; and in the fourth, he was the first in Britain who assigned to chemistry its proper position as a science of great importance, and susceptible of wide application. In his introductory lectures on this memorable occasion he referred to the advantages which a teacher has when he explains his own ideas and writings, instead of commenting upon those of others, and then adds: "I ought to give a text-book myself, but shall not attempt it, till after a little more experience in teaching. In the meantime, I shall endeavour to supply its place by an easy, clear order and