stood on no infirm basis when it was rested on what I had done to deserve it. Although, however, I can no longer act in an equally conspicuous capacity, yet I hope I may hereafter be employed as a teacher in one not less useful. I am neither arrived at that age which requires ease, nor am I placed in those circumstances which will allow of it It is therefore my present intention, still to dedicate my labours to the service of the students of medicine. * * * * I have already lived long enough to have experienced even advantages from disappointment on other occasions, and time alone can determine whether the present disappointment may not yet afford me the strongest instance of the favour of heaven."[1] The human mind often acquires additional strength and activity from the fruits of adversity; and in the present instance, Dr Duncan immediately determined on delivering an independent course of lectures on the theory and practice of physic, without the walls of the university; besides which, as his clinical lectures had been so numerously attended, he also announced his intention of continuing them. "While these lectures," said he, in announcing his intention, "are more immediately intended for the instruction of students, they will be also the means of furnishing the indigent with advice and medicines gratis, when subjected to chronical diseases." He soon found that the number of sick poor who applied to him for relief was so considerable, that he was induced to project a scheme for the establishment of a dispensary for the purpose of alleviating the sufferings of those whose diseases were not of a nature to entitle them to admission into the royal infirmary. When, in addition to the gnawing miseries of poverty, the victims of ill fortune have to writhe under the tortures of slow and lingering disease, sad indeed are the endurances of suffering humanity; and no wonder therefore is it, that when the objects of this institution, by the unwearied exertions of Dr Duncan, were brought fully and fairly before the public, a sufficient fund was raised to carry his views into effect. In Richmond Street, on the south side of the city, a commodious building for this charity was erected, and in 1818, the subscribers were incorporated by royal charter. Notwithstanding the increasing number of similar institutions, this dispensary continues to flourish; and a picture of the venerable founder is placed in its hall.
In the same year that Dr Duncan commenced lecturing (1773), he also undertook the publication of a periodical work, entitled "Medical and Philosophical Commentaries," which was avowedly on the plan of a similar publication at Leipsic; the "Commentarii de Rebus in Scientia Natural! et Medicina gestis," which obviously could only be a very imperfect channel for the communication of British medical literature. The Medical and Philosophical Commentaries contained an account of the best new books in medicine, and the collateral branches of philosophy ; medical cases and observations; the most recent medical intelligence, and lists of new books: it appeared in quarterly parts, forming one volume annually, and continued until the year 1795 under his sole superintendence, when it had extended to twenty volumes. It was afterwards continued by him under the title of "Annals of Medicine," until the year 1804, when it consisted of eight volumes more, after which, Dr Duncan ceased to officiate as editor, and changing its appellation, it became the "Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal," which, under the care of his son, became subsequently one of the most influential medical journals in Europe.
In the year 1790, Dr Duncan was elected president of the college of physicians in Edinburgh, and in the same year, his venerable friend Dr Cullen having resigned the professorship of the practice of medicine, Dr James Gregory
- ↑ Medical and Philosophical Commentaries, vol. iv. 103, 104.
