EARLY DOCTORS,

By Dr J. KINNEAR, O.B.E., T.D., M.D., F.R.C.P.Ed., D.L. Royal Infirmary, Dundee

^His paper is a brief history of the medical profession in Dundee from its earliest records in the Burgh annals at the end of the fifteenth Century to the latter half of the eighteenth century, some three hundred years. I want to try to build up a picture of what kind of men these early doctors were, how they worked, how they behaved, and what their influence was on the life of the Burgh and its influence on theirs. our local historians there are three I want to mention. ^ Amongst shall refer to them again. A. Maxwell sixty or more years ago Wrote two large volumes on the history of old Dundee before and after the from material he collected from the Burgh rec?rds, but he was not specially interested in doctors and it is often n?t possible to be certain when he is referring to one if, as often happens, he only gives a name without mentioning the occupation. The late r R. C. Buist again searched the same records up to 1600 but with express purpose of finding out all he could about Dundee doctors, the lecture he delivered as a result was published in the ^edical Journal in 1930. The late Dr A. H. Millar, City Librarian, Wr?te much about Dundee and edited many local records, but as he Xvas not always accurate in his statements they had to be verified Wherever possible. Still he proved very useful. In those days Dundee was a small walled town not much more than a mile long by half a mile wide and it suffered from our various Wars more than any other Scottish town. It is said that Dundee was always on the right side at the wrong time and the wrong side at the right time. At any rate it lost practically all its records under Edward I, and again when it was sacked by the English in 1548. Its worst disaster came in 1651 when it fell to Monk's seige ; it took 200 years to recover, ar*d this was not helped by its being taken by Montrose nor by the Mentions of Prince Charles's army in 1745. The population was probably never above 10,000 to the end of the period we are considering and from about 8000 after Monk's seige gradually fell to 5203 in 1746, though it more than doubled itself during the next decade. At first the only medical practitioners in Dundee of whom we have records were barber-surgeons, called indifferently by either name, the first physician is mentioned late in the sixteenth century and we have no trace of any apothecary before the middle of the seventeenth century. The early records are mainly civic ; offences against the ?^urgh or actions between neighbours or between doctor and patient vol. lx. no. 4 169 l 2 170 J. KINNEAR or records of trading activities and such like, and the earliest mention we have of a barber-surgeon is of Robert Johnson who, in 1495, paid " ' xxs for a lair in the kirk for himself and Jonat Alanson his spouse ; that is all we know of him for certain but perhaps he was the man " referred to by the High Treasurer in 1497 when he records paid ixs to the barbor that brought aquavite to the king in Dundee." A royal visit was an annual event in those days. The principal records of James Man are of his troubles due to an impetuous nature. In 1521 the Burgh Court Records show an entry " anent the troublance be fisichis Man contair J hone Butte. " " Fisichis is an unusual but apt appellation. Friends were ordered to patch up the quarrel but James Man had to answer to the Bailies for his breach of the peace. In July 1523 he was again in trouble, this time for refusing to take up the collection in : "on his awn confession for the wrongeous denial to pass with the haliblut " burd (holyblood board) he was given the appropriate penalty of a " fine equivalent to the previous collection, vis iijd." The altar of the Holy Blood was the particular care of the Guildry and its finances were augmented by a duty on imports to the town which, after the " " " Reformation, was known as the Gild Silver instead of the Holy Blood Silver" and the proceeds were devoted to Guild charities. The objection of James Man to taking up the collection was evidently not an isolated one as special pains and penalties were laid down for " those who refused to pass with the haliblut burd." James was duly succeeded by his son James, also a surgeon, who in 1551 was admitted burgess by right of his father and whose record goes on till 1592. We shall hear of him again. Robert Pypar practised for long in Dundee, his record runs frorn " 1527, when as barbitonsor" he was admitted burgess, till i5^9 when his grandson was served his heir. He had a booth under the old Tollbooth in the High Street, and was important enough to have " " a close named after him when Wm. Shippert's Close at the west " end of the High Street changed its name to Robert Pypar's Close.' His story shows his various activities, collecting his bills, supplying" " James Caraill, surgeon, with drugs, suing Thomas Fetly over xv dusson of bedes of sybowis for xiis the dussone ", getting a deal in hides completed, or having to pay his share to the clerk of the ship " " " as part venturer in the George or the James." Doctors in those days did not confine their activities to the practice of their profession, as many entries show. " On 5th September 1550 Pypar sued Gibbe Saidler for the curing " of Riche Saidler's heid hurt be ynglismen apparently in the i54^ invasion. The balance due was about 7s. 6d. In 1563 he had a dispute with his next-door neighbour about mutual rights of their respective booths and Robert had to take down a wooden erection which he had put up which interfered with the booth next door. About this time two local men attained fame as doctors outwith EARLY DUNDEE DOCTORS 171 the " " Burgh, the earliest records of a long line of medical exports from Dundee. Dr Michael Durham seems to have come from the family of Durham of Grange of Barry, he was physician to James V and " attested his last will. His brother Henry was renter of the Great " Customs of Dundee and Captain of when it surrendered to the English in 1547. Both were graduates in Arts of ^t Andrews University. " " James Watson was admitted yeman or attendant to James V ln *539, he had property in Dundee where his widow, Mariota Rollock, Was living in 1554. Sir David Lindsay mentions him in one of his Poems :?.

" James was a man of greit intellegence, Ane mediciner ful of experience, . . ." Records of medical services to the wounded in the frequent wars of those days are very scanty but one relates how the Dundee contingent which set out in 1560 under Provost Haliburton to help fight the rench troops brought over by the Queen Regent was accompanied y its surgeons. In 1567 James Caraill, whom I have mentioned already, asked testimony from the Bailies that he and other Dundee Surgeons had never been paid by the Earl of Moray as they had been " Promised for their grite labours and costs upon the curing and ealing of Inglismen and Scotismen there hurt and wounded ", that ls at the seige of Leith, where for once Scots and English were on the same side. I don't know if the surgeons were ever paid. Duncan is the first Dundee doctor recorded who founded a Findlay famous family and it is interesting to trace its rise. Along with another surgeon, John Brown, he was one of the 193 burghers tried artd acquitted of rioting at the sack of the monasteries in 1543. At ne time he had owned a house at the top of Long Wynd, but he 1Ved on the south side of the Overgate just west of Tally Street. He ^vas admitted burgess in 1550 but Millar is wrong in describing his as the first of the medical faculty to appear on the Roll. Probably ^ame " " " tillar did not realise that barber" and surgeon were then Anonymous. Duncan's admission was for services rendered to the c?mmonweal, probably during the troubled Reformation period. His Practice was wide enough to include the laird of Balmashanner at ?rfar, and he was a person of some importance in his own Burgh. Was a member of several courts of referees set up by the magistrates |? settle disputes between surgeon and patient. In 1562 a dispute " etween Matthew Wedderburn and Patrick Walker, surgeon, anent " " healing of the said Mathew's thome was referred to Findlay uncan and John Kinloch, surgeons." In November 1564 the assess- ment " " of Patrick Walker's labour done upon Gilbert Ramsay was " Referred to Robert Pypar, Findlay Duncan, James Man and John rown, chirurgeons." This case must have included practically the Whole medical strength of the Burgh, which Buist estimates at 6 or 7 Iri those days. In December 1566 Thos. Smyt was ordered to pay 172 J. KINNEAR

" Patrick Walker for his lawbors the sowme that Robert Pypar, Finlo Duncan and James Man would make him pay." The amount was " assessed at xls." Patrick Walker must have had a grievance against Findlay Duncan " for in August 1576 he was convicted of invasion of Findlaw Duncane, s chirurgeon, with ane drawn quhinger yestrene in Robert Lovell " " house (Lovell was also a surgeon) and was ordered to pass fore- anent Robt. Lovell's yeitt and their upone his knees tak his quhinger be the poynt and offer the same to Finlaw and ask his forgiveness for God saik and find caution or he depart furth of the tolbooth under pain of xl lib neuer to commit the lik trouble nor invasion to na nichtbour of this burt in tyme coming." Patrick was careful of his rights and when he went to Court used to claim not only his fees but his expenses too. As an indication of fees in those days Patrick was " granted a decree in 1568 for 15s. for healing a straik fower insche deep in the flank of John Robertson, mariner." Another type of action which still exists to-day is recorded in i6i4- A dissatisfied patient who changed her doctor, and in fact went to Edinburgh for advice, sued her doctor for malpractice when Margaret Chalmers, wife of Alex. Smith sued John Fordyce, surgeon, through her husband. Fordyce had attended Margaret for nine years, having " " " promised under God to heal her damaged right arm for fourtie lib money a boll of wheat and two of meal ; but when her husband " took her to Edinburgh the surgeons there said John had not rythe " understood the hurt and had done her more harm than good. The pursuer, however, lost her case. But to return to the Duncans. Findlay must have died between 1587, the date of his last entry in the records, and 1590 when his wido^ is mentioned, and was succeeded by his son, William, born 155^' " " his died 1608. William is usually referred to as surgeon but on " tombstone in he is called physician." He served his tow*1 well as councillor, Dean of Guild and Bailie till his death. He married Katherine, daughter of the first Alexander Wedderburn, Town Clerk) " and was thus a brother-in-law of David Wedderburn of the Coxnp* " to Buik in which he is frequently mentioned, and was godfather David's son, David, in 1599. His son, William Duncan of Seasyde (the family are now landed proprietors) acquired the estate of Lundie 0 and his direct descendant was Admiral Duncan, the victor Camperdown. Another Dundee doctor who founded the family fortunes was the well-known Dr David Kinloch who was born in 15 59. Buist has found four medical Kinlochs in Dundee before Dr David, all surgeons, but their relationship is uncertain. Dr David owned Kinloch's meadow north of the town, bequeathed to him by his father, John Kinloch- I shall mention it again. David studied at St Andrews and abroad and evidently acquired a great reputation. From James VI he obtained letters of introduction to the principal monarchs of Europe and jnade EARLY DUNDEE DOCTORS 173 at least two extensive tours on the continent. But misfortune befell him on his second tour, in Spain, for there he was seized by the Inquisition and condemned to death as a heretic. The Auto-da-Fe lr* which he was to participate seemed long in coming and when he asked the reason learned that it had been postponed because the Grand Inquisitor was seriously ill. David then disclosed the fact that he was a doctor, and the illness must have caused much alarm for the heretic was allowed to treat the Grand Inquisitor. Fortunately, following the best canons of romantic fiction, Kinloch's ministrations Were successful, the patient recovered and the doctor was loaded with honours and set free. He came home, apparently about 1596, and married next year. Kinloch was a scholar of parts and two of his poems in Latin on Medical subjects, which give an interesting account of the state of Medical knowledge in those days, are to be found along with other Latin poems by his co-burghers, James Goldman, merchant, and James Gleg, master of the Grammar School, in Poetae Scotigenae. Physicians' ideas of the cause of plague were curious in those days. " According to Dr Gilbert Skene of Aberdeen the first and principal Cause ... is a scurge and punishment of the most just God. . . . So heavine quhilk is the admirable instrument of God blawis that c?ntagion upon the face of the earth." An epidemic of plague is Presaged by frequent eclipses of the sun, comets, falling stars and " fiery inflammations of the heavens. As regards local causes of " " P^gue in cities and houses he admits that corruption and filth have something to do with it and in a curiously practical detail warns People to keep their cats and dogs within the house in time of plague. Civic authorities were more alive to the need for practical preventive Measures and, when plague was about, Dundee was barred to persons, animals or goods of any description arriving from infected areas. In *608 when plague was actually in the town the bellman was sent " r?und to instruct the haill puir inhabitants quha were nocht able to furnish fire to the cleansing of their infected geir to present the same to the kiln and kettle, and there sail be fire furnished to them upon the c?mmon charges." The kiln was, of course, an oven and the kettle a " " Washing boiler so that geir could be baked or boiled according to its nature. The incident is an example of practical and effective Public measures for disinfection at an unexpectedly early date. The Town Council's practical ideas were much ahead of the speculative Philosophy of the physicians. Dr Kinloch was the Goldman family physician and in 1607 when John, the second son, fell ill of the plague during the epidemic we have been talking about he died despite the Doctor's ministrations. Kinloch was appointed physician to James VI and altogether must have been a notable figure in the town. His house lay at the foot of " Spen's or Whitehall close foreanent the windmill ", a prominent landmark in those and later days, and in 1610, when it seems the doctor 174 J. KINNEAR

" was on his travels again, his wife got three masons under silence of nicht, to big ane pillar (or wall) of stone wark upon the common street and bounds thereof, betwix his tenement and the windmill." This was heinous, first to encroach on the street and secondly, for masons to work at night. It was the masons who suffered, they were fined ?$ each, whipped, and had to take their work down. Kinloch's royal letter is, I believe, still extant as is his portrait, painted in Madrid. He acquired the estates of Aberbrothie and Balmyle " " and renamed them Kinloch and he was thus the progenitor of the Kinlochs of Kinloch. His son Alexander bought the estate of Gourdy and also founded a family. His great-great-grandson, Sir James Kinloch Nevay, held Dundee for the Pretender in 1745, and the well-known Radical M.P. of 150 years ago, George Kinloch, whose statue stands in Albert Square, was his direct descendant. It is appropriate that this statue stands on ground which once formed part of Kinloch's meadow. Dr Kinloch died in 1617 at the age of 58 and his monument in the " Howff eulogises him (in Latin) as a most honourable man, of famous learning, and in his life adorned with many singular virtues ; a most skilful physician to the Kings of Great Britain and France, by whose patents and seals the antiquity of his Pedigree and Extract is clearly witnessed and proven. ..."

" Gallant Kinloch his famous ancient race Appear by this erected in this place ; His honour great indeed ; his art and skill And famous name both sides o' the pole do fill." This poem has since been effaced. But all doctors did not fare so well. James Ouhitson the surgeon's tale, is, like the mouse's in "Alice," a long and a sad one. It starts in 1574 when he sued for fees, he always seemed to be in financial trouble, and in 1602 he is suing for the return of goods pertaining " to him, a mixed twa tin plattis, seven tin trenchers, ane tin bag, ' stoup, twa brassin pottis, ane iron pot, ane pan, ane credall of aik and two rolls of cloth. In 1605 he was assaulted by John Yeaman, " merchant, a somewhat notorious character, who had been diverse times convict in troublances committit against peaceable inhabitants. He married Janet, daughter of James Goldman, the merchant, and had a son, but they must have died before him for on nth July 1609 he was admitted to the Hospital?the poor-house of those days?as a beneficiary under a deed of his brother-in-law John, Dr Kinloch's " patient, beand ane single person naither haffand barne nor wyiff." A picturesque figure of this time is Sir Hugh Herries, physician to James VI, who was apparently of Dundee origin though there is no record of his having practised here. In August 1600 he helped to save the King's life at the Gowrie House affair in Perth. There is an interesting account of this episode in the Dundee Magazine for 1799, but by what must be an unfortunate misprint it says that when EARLY DUNDEE DOCTORS 175 the Earl of Gowrie entered the King's room Herries assailed him ^ith << " rusty sword. The doctor was knighted for his gallant action and on the 12th October of the same year, he, Sir Thomas Erskine and Sir John Ramsay were made burgesses of Dundee. There ls a suspicious promptitude in the honouring of these three for rumour had it that the City Fathers had been inclined to the Gowrie side before the incident and hastened to show their loyalty. Herries must have died before 2nd November 1614 when George Heres in Dundee, his nephew, was served his heir. Mr William Ferguson, physician, who lived from 1563-1627 was the son of the famous David Ferguson, a native of Dundee, and first Protestant of Dunfermline, where William was born. The doctor settled in Dundee and in 1592 was made burgess by privilege ?f his father, went on the Town Council and was Kirkmaster, Dean of Guild, and Bailie till his death. It is difficult to say how much he was a physician, he is described as such in the Burgess Roll and on his in the but in all other references he is called |?mbstone' Howff, " " " ^agister or Mr so he must have taken at least his M.A. degree, but there is no record of an M.D., nor in the many entries regarding him is there any evidence of medical practice. All his references are about civic or mercantile activities. And he did well, he could even lend the Town Council money and in 1615 he acquired the estate of ^albeuchlie. He was three times married, first to Eupham, sister of Kinloch, secondly to Elizabeth Symmers and thirdly to Katherine ^redderburn, widow of William Duncan the surgeon. His son William a former marriage married Katherine's daughter by her first husband so the family tree is rather complicated ! His house stood to the west of Couttie's Wynd almost where the s?uth end of Union Street is now, and he had occupied the Kinloch house opposite the windmill when the doctor was abroad in 1595. Kinloch had difficulty in getting him out of it when he returned. " Maxwell records that in 1607 he biggit a timber wall upon the waste ground be-west the windmill foreanent the headroom of his " tenement and had to take it down again, so that he tried the same trick the Kinlochs tried later with no success in either case. His house was the scene of an exciting incident in 1605 for Harry Symer, a relation of his second wife, who lodged with them, had aevidently quarrel with John Scrymgeour. The two were commanded to ^eep their respective lodgings till the Council decided what to do " " with them, but John broke out and at aucht hours in the nicht with two others came to the Ferguson house, tried to get at Harry, " called him names and told him to come down to the close mouth and debate their wrangs." The riot was quelled and the participants ah put in prison till payment was made of suitable fines. Peter, son of James Goldman the merchant, went to St Andrews, t?ok his M.A. in 1601 and subsequently became an M.D. and was no niean Latin scholar. In 1617, when James VI made his first return 176 J. KINNEAR visit to after his accession to the English throne, Peter along with James Gleg, master of the Grammar School, presented Latin poems to His Majesty in celebration of his arrival in Dundee. These were included in The Muses Welcome and other of his Latin in poems, especially an interesting family history, are to be found Sir Robert Scott's Delitiae Poetarum Scotorum." Evidence of his " scholarship is also to be found in Wedderburne's Compt Buik " where on 7th November 1621 it is noted that he was lent 4 books " " of Homer's Iliad and ane uther Greek book." I wish we had more time to pause to consider what life in Dundee was like about the turn of the century. Dundee did not suffer as Edinburgh did from the removal of the Court to London and it must have been an interesting, erudite and busy epoch in the town's history- Although, as we have seen, plague pestered Dundee in the early years of the seventeenth century there was a lull in civil and religious strife, a busy commerce, inducement to travel, and an educated society with great love of the classics, as their Latin poems and borrowed Greek books show. I like to think of the Kinlochs, Goldmans, Glegs and Wedderburns as frequent visitors to each others' houses, and I arn sure that Dr Kinloch had something to do with the fact that not only young Goldman but young Gleg and young Wedderburn too became physicians. Buist, talking of the typical Dundonian of 1590, describes him as dressed in a kind of Norfolk jacket with breeches rather like " plus fours ", a beret and the inevitable quhinger, and there is a tombstone in the Howff of a namesake of mine, but as far as I know no relation, Jhone Kynneir, sometime in Keith, and Eupham Grey his spouse, dated 1627 on which he is rather crudely depicted in some such costume with a ruff. " There is a rather obscure entry in the Burgess Roll for 1615 which day James Neill, surgeon, is made a Burgess and Brother of the Guild* for his services in curing the inhabitants of the Burgh who were wounded in the service of their country, and for his attendance upon the poor of the said Burgh when requested by the Provost and Bailies. According to Millar this is the earliest record of recognition of gratuitous medical services in civic annals, Neill does not appear elsewhere, there is no clue to his life or career, nor is it easy to tell in which war the casualties occurred. John Wedderburne, eldest son of John Wedderburne and Margaret he Lindsay* was born in 1583 and was educated as a physician but to was also an outstanding mathematician and gave up Medicine become Professor of Mathematics in the University of Padua. This was not so difficult to do then as it would be now for Latin was the universal language for teaching, and Scotland with her Continental connections used the Continental pronunciation. England not only " " spoke French after the school of Stratford-atte-Bow but had her * the Millar is wrong in the parentage in Eminent Burgesses but corrects it in Compt Buik. EARLY DUNDEE DOCTORS 177

?Wn pronunciation of Latin, and even 150 years later Boswell, in his London Journal, notes that when watching the King's scholars of " Westminster School act a play of Terence he seldom understood them yet . . . was entertained to see the boys play and hear them sPeak Latin with the English accent." But Wedderburne knew talian too, and Lithgow the traveller spent three months in Padua earning the language from the doctor. John, however, tired of mathematics, left Padua, and spent the ^st ?f his life?he was alive in 1647, aged 64?practising medicine in rinth in Moravia where, as late as 1816, his descendants were living " Under the name of Wetterborn." E)r Thomas Gleg, son of the schoolmaster, took his M.A. at Andrews where he became a regent. A schoolmaster's salary was eVen less then than it is now, but an appreciative Town Council granted " |he elder Gleg in 1636 ? 100 per annum for his son during his abode |n the Philosophy College of St Andrews." This is not the only lnstance of the Town's generosity to faithful servants. Thomas became an M.D. and rose to be one of the foremost medical men of his time and was associated with early abortive proposals for founding a College Physicians in Edinburgh. He too was a Latin scholar of very great abiHty and his poem on the much maligned Sir George Mackenzie, *ho by the way was also a native of Dundee, is quoted by Millar in Eminent Burgesses. Other doctors we must pass over for lack of time, but no story Dundee can omit mention of Monk's seige in 1651. I cannot tell any medical details of that tragic episode but there is a story too S?od to be omitted, though it has been told several times before. It 's ?f a boy of ten, not a Dundonian, but who was brought to the town ?r safety at the time and who afterwards became, as Sir Robert Jbbald, equally famous as a physician (he was instrumental in ?Unding the Royal College of Physicians in Edinburgh) and as an antiqUarian. He was also in 1670 made a Burgess of Dundee, so e almost qualifies as a Dundee doctor. Let him tell the story in his ?Wn words, they could not be bettered :? "In the time the Inglishes were storming the town there was a attery erected by them, from which they fired canon and muskets the High Street from the Banet-raw, opposite to the Morow-gate. ^toAue townsmen had put up a sconce of deals (a wooden barricade) ln the middle of the street, my sister, Geals, a child then of 8 years age, had passed somewhat higher than the sconce, and was exposed to their view. I ran after her to bring her back, and they fyred at us ln the returning ; the ball missed us and battered upon the street, took it up and brought it in with me." It says a lot for the courage and coolness of the ten-year-old, and " reflects rather poorly on the sportsmanship of the Inglishes ", but then they were only Roundheads ! Robert Straiton, one of the earliest of the Dundee apothecaries 178 J. KINNEAR and for long a town councillor, was a man of substance and the proprietor of much property near Speed's Close in the Overgate. The tombstone he erected in the Howff to his two wives, Jonet Duncan who died in 1652, and Isobel Robertson or Robson who died five years later is illuminating :?

On right Duncan lies, in Youth my Spouse And the first pillar of my rising house. Left hand lies Robson, a most faithful wife ; Which was the best, it may procure a strife. First brought me of wealth sufficient store Which the other guided well, augmented more. First blessed me with many children fair, The second nursed them with maternal care. Virtue and Goodness in them equal shone And both lie buried underneath this stone.

The stone, alas, has disappeared. We read of Robert's financial activities in the delightful Glat}ltS Book of Record of the first Earl of Strathmore, whose accounts, in spite of his careful notes, seem always to be in a muddle. But thanks to a gift to the Earl from the King and some complicated juggling' Robert gets paid 9000 merks due to him in 1684. I like the entry 1st July of the same year when the Earl's temper evidently got the better of him when settling his account with the Apothecary. " I have this day payed Robert Stratone apothecary his act. 123 lib which is long owing and is ridiculous, and I pray God help them that have occasion to be in there books, since ther drogs and pastilles are set downe under such strange names and unknown marks that they cannot be well controlled." has A familiar and honoured name in Dundee for many years 111 been Yeaman, and there are records of three doctors of this name the town in the seventeenth century, but I'm sure that Millar has mixed them up in his notes in the Book of Record. John a Yeaman, surgeon, was made burgess of Dundee in 1647 and had oI son, William, also a surgeon, who in 1696 appears as a subscriber " " ? 100 to the Darien scheme, but the Dr Yeaman mentioned by the Earl cannot have been either of these as they were surgeons, and must have been Alexander Yeaman, doctor of medicine, who, " according to the 1878 , was assaulted at dead of night when attending a funeral in 1668. In 1684 the Earl notes pathetically " there being great account rent no less than from Whitsunday 7-> till Whitsunday '84 resting to Dr Yeaman's son of the principal sorrm^ of 4000 lib which I cannot fall upon any discharge mentioning paymerlt t0 since that time. I have within these last two years been labouring overtake the payment and have payed to James Lyon, factor appointe al by his tutors 1920 lib or thereby but have not been able to clear bygones hitherto." Dr Yeaman was evidently dead by this tirne " possibly before '73," perhaps the night assault had proved fatal. EARLY DUNDEE DOCTORS 179

Sir John Wedderburne, son of Alexander, the second Town Clerk " " and nephew of David Wedderburne of the Compt Buik studied at St Andrews and abroad. He became physician to Charles I, who lighted him, and was a real King's man, for in 1646 he was in- corporated in the University of Oxford, and in the same year joined Charles II in Holland. He died unmarried in 1679, and left his library and a large legacy to St Leonard's College in St Andrews. There are other shadowy figures flitting across the pages of this Century. Buist found the names of 35 Dundee doctors up to 1600, whom at least 30 practised in the town ; apart from those who ^lved on into this next century I find 15 names between 1600 and 1700 ?f which two belonged to doctors who probably did not practise here. The eighteenth century opens with another outstanding character Poetising medicine in the town, Patrick Blair who came from an ?ld Dundee family and was born about 1666. He must not be confused ^Jth his namesake who practised in Dundee 100 years earlier, they oth moved to England in later life. He did not confine his activities *? Medicine but was interested also in natural history and especially In botany. He was evidently a man of character, eager in all his Pursuits and able to infect others with his enthusiasm. He could make riends too by correspondence, a good deal of which survives, and he Published works on medicine, natural history and botany. Blair started his professional life as a surgeon-apothecary and aPparently served with the army in the Low Countries, for in his r*tings he refers to surgical and medical cases he had dealt with during the years 1695-97. He settled in Dundee and in 1701 jheread " prepared a treatise entitled Manuductio ad Anatomium ; or a plain and easy way of dissecting, preparing, or preserving all parts the body of man either for public demonstration, or the satisfaction of Private curiosity." In 1707 he prepared a skeleton for the University St as ^ Andrews for which he received 100 merks well as expenses. his great chance had come in 1706 for a peripatetic elephant toUring Scotland was brought from the north by its keepers, and ^ben about a mile from Dundee it collapsed and died on Saturday, 27th April. Provost Yeaman and Dr Blair, on hearing of this unusual " ?ccurrence, hurried out in order to have the skin flea'd off which " his chief design and the body opened which was mine says ^as " iair- The doctor was concerned because of the disadvantage (he) ^as at for there went out a great multitude, the day was very hot and being the last day of the week the subject could admit of no delay." got so much done before the Sabbath but on his return on Monday horning found that the insides of the beast had been dried up by |be heat and that a whole forefoot had been stolen, which, however, " after much pains and the earnest care of Provost Yeaman was rec?vered about six weeks later. With the help of other physicians and surgeons from Dundee the dissection was completed (one can P*cture the busy and smelly scene by the roadside on a warm spring 180 J. KINNEAR day) and the skeleton and stuffed skin were for many years on exhibition " in Dundee. Blair had induced several honourable and learned gentlemen in the neighbourhood, with the physicians and surgeons in this place, to erect a public hall at their own private charges, to a use all means for improvement of the Natural History, to make collection of curiosities . . . and to establish a Physic Garden whereof " I," he said am overseer." Here the elephant was housed ; but garden, hall and contents have long since disappeared. It is said that the elephant's bones were frugally ground down to make top dressing f?r be a farm in Strathmore. Blair's account of the elephant, the first to dissected in this country, he sent to Sir Hans Sloane in London and it was published in Philosophical Transactions for 1710. Shortly afterwards Blair was elected F.R.S. and his treatise was re published in 1713 with four plates engraved on copper by Gilbert Oram Dundee, the earliest record of such work in this town. They could perhaps have been better done in London but Blair wanted then1 made where he could supervise and correct the work as it went on- " He also helped to found a Society for Natural Improvements of Dundee." It was not unnatural that his labours brought him further honours and in 1712 he was made M.D. by Aberdeen University on " the recommendation of the bishop of Aberdeen and several eminent physicians in Angus." He continued his correspondence with Sloane to and also with Petiver, the London apothecary ; they were both prove good friends to him later. He travelled to London in 17 to meet them and there is extant a long gossipy letter from him t0 Petiver, with whom he had stayed in London, describing his fore- gathering with eminent botanists and physicians in Lichfield, Oxford and elsewhere on his homeward journey. But sad days were in store for Dr Blair. He was induced to join " the Jacobite army in 1715, though he afterwards said he was in no respect accessary to the late troubles, but happening to reside near the parts where the rebellion broke out, the gentry forced him t0 accompany the army as a medical attendant." He was made prisoner at the surrender at Preston, took part in the miserable trek in bleak November weather across the midlands to London where he found himself in Newgate, a condemned rebel. Sloane and Petiver did their best to get him a reprieve but on the eve of his execution it had not arrived. Petiver visited him that evening and, writing to Sloane, " tells how the doctor sat pretty quietly till the clock struck ni^e> and then he got up and walked about the room ; at ten he quickened ' his pace ; and at twelve, no reprieve coming he cried out, By m/ " troth, this is carrying the jest too far.' However, again according to the best canons of romantic fiction, it arrived soon after and finally Blair was pardoned. He did not return to Dundee but, after an ineffectual attempt to practise in London, removed to Boston in Lincolnshire where in addition to doctoring he continued to publish works on botany. Botanick Essays, published in 1720, is perhaps his EARLY DUNDEE DOCTORS 181 rrLost famous work and was the first to give in English a reasoned ^nd convincing proof of sex in plants. He had got as far as the letter ^ " in an Alphabetical and Classical Dissertation on all the British ndigenous and Garden Plants of the New London Dispensatory" Xvhen he died in 1728. He was, we can see, a likeable character and an enthusiastic ^entist who lost no opportunity of improving and disseminating his knowledge. Still another Wedderburne falls to be recorded now?Dr John edderburne, younger son of James Wedderburne and grandson of ^lr Alexander Wedderburne of Blackness. He spent his life in Undee, lived in Butcher Row and owned the old Weigh House. He his cousin, Margaret, daughter of Andrew Balfour, W.S., juriedut died without issue in 1751 aged 72 and his tombstone in the Howff " escribed him as a most skilful physician, a man gentle and loving t 0 aH and adorned with every virtue." Another vague but interesting figure is Dr William Raitt, whose ?Use was in Grey's Close in the High Street. He was a traveller ?> and on a visit to Rome in 1740 was shown by the Vatican librarian e original mandate by the Pope for taking a collection throughout ristendom to help in building a church in Dundee. This was for e original church of St Mary. Two references to George Glas, son of the famous Rev. , s^ate that he was bred a surgeon, and made two voyages as such to ^erica. But he was fonder of sailing than of surgery and subsequently a jfot ship of his own. He had, as is recorded in the Dundee Repository ??r 1793, an exciting life, as all sailors had in those days, with war, lr^prisonment, piracy and mutiny, and on a voyage home with his and daughter in 1765 all perished at the hands of mutineers. e Was only 40 when he was killed, but had already published several accounts of his voyages and a good history of the Canary Islands. Sir William Duncan, Bart., M.D., who was the second son of eXander Duncan of Lundie, and thus an uncle of the Admiral, is ^?ther local man who went south to make his fortune. He took his *^- with at a in r honours Edinburgh and acquired good practice " " ?ndon. He was evidently on the make for he married Lady Mary ufton, daughter of Sackville Earl of Thanet. After their marriage ey Went (( abroad and on returning settled in London where they lived in great splendour." He became a personal friend of George II 0 him his He was made a k appointed physician extraordinary. aronet in 1754, died without issue in 1789 and was brought home to b* buried in Lundie. Patrick Alison, surgeon, great-grandson of Robert Straiton, apothecary, is mentioned in 1767 as succeeding to the wooden land the Overgate. This interesting relic, the last of its kind in Dundee, asted till 1876 when it was acquired and demolished, I am sorry to Say, by my great-uncle. Gowan's Court stands on its site. v?l. lx. no. 4 M 182 J. KINNEAR

in Dr George Paterson was a man of many parts ; born in Dundee 1734 he graduated in medicine and accompanied Sir Robert Harland to India as his official secretary and there displayed considerable administrative ability as well as professional talent in those stirring days of Clive. He was succeeded in the arduous task of defending " " the Nawab of Arcot by James Macpherson of Ossian fame, and having amassed a large fortune returned to Scotland in 1775- married the Hon. Anne, daughter of the 12th Baron Grey and in 177/ purchased Castle Huntly, near Longforgan, became an enthusiastic ot farmer, and introduced several important changes in the methods rearing crops and fruit. At some time or other he must have beer1 at ordained for he was appointed minister of the English Chapel he . He soon made his presence felt in his native town for was Deacon-Convenor of the Nine Trades in 1776 and Deacon of the Weavers in 1776 and 1777. In 1775 he had presented three elegant s lustres to the West Hall of the Old Town House where St David Masonic Lodge met, became its Master and as such officiated at the laying of the foundation stone of the Old Trades Hall in 1776. He even preached in the English Chapel in Dundee on St John's day> 27th December 1777 before the three Masonic Lodges, an unusual incident in a Presbyterian burgh, but then it was on a Wednesday* " to not a Sunday. The Masons after service repaired to the Inns their dinners and the night ended in a Very Grand Exhibition Fireworks." Dr Paterson lived till he was 83 and died in 1817. H|s numerous sons all achieved distinction in Navy or Army and his descendant died in Castle Huntly only a few years ago. Sir Alexander Wedderburn of Blackness and his son John, then only 16 years of age, joined Lord Ogilvy's Regiment and were present at Culloden. Sir Alexander was captured and subsequently executed in London, but the son, after an exciting time, escaped to America a and thence went to Jamaica. Here Sir John, as he now was, was " " practitioner of physic and chirurgery as well as being planted ? and trader. I wonder where and when he got his medical training He returned to Scotland in 1769, acquired the estate of Balindean> but he doesn't seem to have practised medicine again. He lived till 1803 and was buried in the HowfF. I have mentioned the dress of the inhabitant of Dundee abollt " " 1600. Philetas in the Dundee Magazine for 1799, writing in rathe1" satirical vein about the town as he knew it fifty years earlier, says d "Physicians wore large muffs, dangled gold-headed canes, hemm loud, looked wise, and according to the strength or weakness of the natural constitution, the patient recovered or expired." He als? " remarks : my worthy cousin Grizzel's country house or villa was then at the West Port on the south side. . . . The situation was prescribed for her by her physicians for the salubrity of the air, but above all for the singular advantage of the precious and wholesome flavour arising from a cow-byre below stairs." EARLY DUNDEE DOCTORS 183

Now we must end our talk. We have glanced over three hundred Years of medical history in Dundee and have reached the end of " Dundee as a little burgh. We are now at the dawn of modern times," the beginning of the expansion of the town, the building of the first Infirmary and all the changes the progress of the next century ^vas to bring to all walks of life including the medical profession. These things alter the character of our story from now on. Apart from their outstanding success in their profession both within and without the burgh these doctors founded notable families, traded, travelled, wrote, were famous scholars and scientists and served their town well in public office ; in fact I wonder if any other trade or Profession in Dundee has such a distinguished and varied record over s? long a period.

VOL. LX. NO. 4 M 2