Sketch of the early history of the medical profession in Edinburgh : being an address delivered at a conversazione in the hall of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, on 22d January 1864 / by John Gairdner, M.D.
- Gairdner, John, 1790-1876.
- Date:
- 1864
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Sketch of the early history of the medical profession in Edinburgh : being an address delivered at a conversazione in the hall of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, on 22d January 1864 / by John Gairdner, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.
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![conferred in Scotland,1 and, if any there were, they must have been exceeding-ly few indeed. It was, perhaps, not amiss that they consulted their very accomplished king in their difficulties; for though, like his brother-in-law, King Henry of England, he came to his knowledge of medicine by some royal road, which, like the right divine to govern wrong, is now obsolete, yet I am by no means sure that his medical advice was not better than theirs. For the physician of those early days paid little attention to the phe- nomena of disease in comparison with what he bestowed on the dicta of the Greek authorities. ■ In his own conception, he was the priest of Apollo, who interpreted to the vulgar those ancient Delphic oracles regarding the ills that flesh is heir to. He may be said, almost without a metaphor, to have been among the number of those who think to climb Parnassus By dint o' Greek. Besides all this, he was given to superstition, to astrology, and to divination; while it is quite possible that the king might be more practical in his methods. In the case of that most afflicting dis- order, the toothach, he proceeded in a very practical way, without consulting either Hippocrates or Avicenna, or any other authority, Greek or Arabian; for, in the lists of the expenditure of the lord high treasurer, of date February 9, 1511-12, there is an entry of a 1 The University of Aberdeen had professors of medicine from 1505, who were probably graduates of some university. The third of these, Gilbert Skene (1556), does not seem to have been abroad, and therefore probably was a graduate of Aberdeen. He published a tract, De peste (1568), afterwards went to Edinburgh (1575), and was appointed doctor of medicine to the king (16th June 1581)—[See Kennedy's Annals of Aberdeen, vol. ii. pp. 368, 403, 435; also Orem's Description of Old Aberdeen in the Years 1724-25, p. 272; Fasti Aberdonenses (published by the Spalding Club), p. 274; and Tracts by Gilbert Skene (published by the Bannatyne Club), preface, pp. vii. to x.]. But it does not appear to me that there was any considerable number of Aberdeen graduates in the sixteenth century, or even in the seventeenth. Of Glasgow University the same thing may be said. On 6th November 1712, there is a minute to the effect that the faculty, considering that the professions of law and medicine have of a long time been neglected, and that the royal visitation in the year 1664 did find that the said professions ought to be revived, agreed that they should be revived. Accordingly, Dr John Johnstoun was made pro- fessor of medicine (1st June 1714); and, some years after (29th September 1720), a Mr Andrew Grahame was made doctor in absence—[See the Institutes of the University of Glasgow, vol. ii., printed by the Maitland Club]. In St Andrews, the celebrated Dr John Arbuthnott appears to be the first doctor in physic created (11th September 1696). He was subjected to a trial before a board of physicians. From the tenor of the minute, it appears that the con-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21452076_0018.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
