be Professor of Chemistry, I was called a Paracelsus, a Van Helmont, a whimsical innovator, and great pains were taken in private to disparage myself and my doctrines.”[1] Cullen lived to know that his teachings had as wide a circulation and as much authority as those of Boerhaave, which ultimately gave place to them.
It was determined, as we are informed by Dr. Thomson in his Life of Cullen, that he should deliver a course of Lectures on the Practice of Medicine during the summer of 1768. He accordingly delivered his first course on that branch at the time specified, and continued to alternate with Dr. Gregory until the death of that professor in 1773, when he succeeded to the Chair. With respect to the above-mentioned arrangement, it appears that an application was made by Dr. Cullen, with the concurrence of Dr. Gregory, for a joint appointment to the Chair of Practice.[2] The movement appears to have been instigated by the students of the University, who were impressed by Dr. Cullen’s teaching at the Infirmary, although Mr. Bower states that “the origin of the whole transaction is involved in obscurity.” “The students were divided in their opinions respecting the abilities of these eminent men as public lecturers, and as usual entered very keenly into the medical theories they severally taught.”[3] This is clear from the correspondence of Dr. Rush, then in Edinburgh, which, although commendatory of Gregory, is enthusiastic with respect to Cullen. In a letter, July 27th, 1768, to Dr. Morgan, he says: “Dr. Cullen, the great unrivaled Dr. Cullen, is going on unfolding each day some new secret to us in the Animal economy; his lectures on the Practice of Physic this summer are richly worth my staying for.”
When we take into consideration the enthusiasm manifested by Dr. Rush with respect to the prelections of Cullen,
- ↑ An Account of the Life, Lectures, and Writings of William Cullen, M. D., Professor of the Practice of Physic in the University of Edinburgh, by John Thomson, M. D., F. R. S., L. and E., Professor of Medicine and General Pathology in the University of Edinburgh, vol. i. p. 161.
- ↑ Bower’s History of the University of Edinburgh, vol. ii. p. 385; vol. iii. p. 108.
- ↑ Bower, loc. cit.
