Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jackson, Robert Edmund
JACKSON, afterwards SCORESBY-JACKSON, ROBERT EDMUND (1835–1867), biographer and medical writer, was a son of Captain Thomas Jackson of the merchant navy, of Whitby, by Arabella, third and youngest daughter of William Scoresby the elder, and sister of William Scoresby, D.D. [q. v.], the well-known arctic explorer and divine. He was born at Whitby in 1835. Jackson was educated for the medical profession at St. George's Hospital, London, at Paris, and afterwards at Edinburgh, where he devoted himself especially to the study of materia medica under Professor (afterwards Sir) Robert Christison. He took the degree of M.D. in 1857, writing a thesis on ‘Climate, Health, and Disease,’ a subject on which he afterwards became an authority. In 1859 he became F.R.C.S., in 1861 F.R.S.E., and in 1862 F.R.C.P. He was lecturer upon materia medica and therapeutics in Surgeons' Hall, Edinburgh, and in 1865 was appointed physician to the Royal Infirmary, and soon afterwards lecturer on clinical medicine. On the death of his uncle, William Scoresby, he assumed the additional name of Scoresby. For some time he was chairman of the medical department of the Scottish Meteorological Society. Scoresby-Jackson died at 32 Queen Street, Edinburgh, on 1 Feb. 1867. He married in 1858 the only child of Sir William Johnston of Kirkhill, and by her had two daughters, who survived him. He published, besides occasional papers: 1. ‘A Life of William Scoresby, D.D.,’ London, 1861, 8vo. 2. ‘Medical Climatology: a Topographical and Meteorological Description of Localities resorted to in Winter and Summer by Invalids,’ London, 1862, 12mo; a work based upon the results of personal visits to the chief continental and Mediterranean health resorts between 1855 and 1861. 3. ‘A Note-Book on Materia Medica, Pharmacology, and Therapeutics,’ 1866, a fourth edition of which, revised by F. W. Moinet, M.D., appeared at Edinburgh, 1880.
[Scotsman, 2 Feb. 1867; Edinburgh Medical Journal, March 1867; Lancet, 9 Feb. 1867; British Medical Journal, 9 Feb. 1867; Athenæum, 16 Feb. 1867; Life of William Scoresby; prefaces to his works.]