at that school about two years; except some few months in the earlier part of the year 1787, which he passed in London. During his residence in Edinburgh he applied himself with unremitted zeal to his professional studies, attending very regularly the lectures of the eminent medical professors who then taught in that university.
In his letters from that place to his brother William, he mentions in terms of high respect the late doctors Walker, Gregory, Black and Hume; from all of whom, particularly the first named, who was the professor of natural history, he received the most marked attentions. Indeed he frequently, in his lectures on natural history, introduced the name of Dr. Walker, and ever spoke of him in terms of unbounded respect, and even veneration. He thought he owed much of his success in pursuits of natural history, to the kind encouragement of this professor, united to the fostering and encouraging notice and friendship of the late Mr. Thomas Pennant, a well known and distinguished English naturalist, with whom he was long in habits of correspondence and good fellowship. As an evidence of his high respect for this great man, he named his only son after him, and often spoke in terms of satisfaction of this circumstance, since he said his motives for the compliment could never be misconstrued, Mr. Pennant having died a considerable time before his friend gave his name to his son.
It appears from a letter to his brother, dated at Edinburg on the 29th of September, 1789, that his health, even at that early period of his life, had been delicate. "My spitting of blood," says he, "has left me, and I am no longer tortured with the gout." In the same letter he mentions, that he had then lately received his diploma from the Lisbon academy; and that Dr. Rush had written him a very polite and friendly letter. At Edinburgh he experienced many marks of the respect in which his talents were there held. Young as he was at that time, he obtained from the Royal Medical Society at Edinburgh—of which he was admitted a member before he had been a year in that metropolis—an honorary premium for his dissertation on the Hyosciamus niger[1] (of Linnaeus)—This was the Harvejan prize. About three years ago he
- ↑ A deleterious plant, commonly known by the name of Black-henbane.
