Robert Jackson, M.D., late inspector-general of army hospitals / [Le Roy Crummer].

  • Crummer, Le Roy, 1872-1934.
Date:
1922
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Robert Jackson, M.D., late inspector-general of army hospitals / [Le Roy Crummer]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Edinburgh. He was mustered out with his regiment in 1784, and in the same year married the well-dowered daughter of Dr. Stephenson. He then went to the Continent to continue his'medical studies and in 1785 was graduated at Leyden. Returning to Scotland, he was in private practice until 1793, when he again entered the army, continuing his military career with occasional interruptions until his return from Jamaica in 1815. He died in 1827. Dr. Jackson was possessed with a strong wanderlust, and while in these days of convenient traveling facilities it would be easy to repeat his journeys, a slight consideration of his odyssey will show the broad foundation he had for training his powers of observation, which were by nature unusually accurate. The two summers intervening during his course at Edinburgh were spent as a surgeon on a whaling vessel in Greenland waters. In 1774 he went to Jamaica, as before mentioned, where he had his first opportunity to study fevers intensively. In 1778, desiring to embark for New York, he walked across the island of Jamaica. On reaching New York he joined the 71st Regiment. At the time, the regiment was stationed in and around New York, but was soon ordered south, and went through the entire campaign, which em¬ braced Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia. During this time, Jackson carefully studied the fevers of the southern states. He was taken prisoner in 1782 and, after his parole, walked to New York and sailed for Edinburgh. After but a short stay he went on foot to London, making the same trip which his countryman, Dr. Smollet, made some years before. After a few weeks spent in London he decided to visit the Continent, and so, like Goldsmith but without the flute, he made a walking tour of many countries which lasted for some seven months. His wanderjahr took him from Calais to Paris, to Geneva, through Switzerland by way of Moret, Berne and Shaffhausen, then across Germany into Austria. At Gunzburg he was arrested as a vagrant and almost impressed into the emperor’s army, but through the efforts of the local commandant was released and Continued his trip to Augsburg, Munich, and thence south through the Tyrol, to Innsbruck and Primolana on his way to Venice. He crossed Italy, visiting Padua and Volta; he went through Lombardy to Genoa. From here he walked to Albenga, Toulon, Marseille, Aix, Montpellier, Rochefort, Rochelle and Nantes, then to San Maleo, thence by boat to Guernsey and South¬ ampton—a trip of some 5,000 miles in all. Arriving in London, he learned that his old regiment was about to be disbanded at Perth, so went there and was mustered out. He then made a pedestrian tour of the highlands before returning to Edinburgh. It was during this visit to Edinburgh that he was married, and almost