Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 50.djvu/18

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graved by Holl, published in London on 1 June 1804, and included in R. J. Thornton's ‘New Illustration of the Sexual System of Carolus von Linnæus,’ 1807.

[Information kindly supplied by P. J. Hartog, esq. of Owens College, Manchester, and D'Arcy Power, M.B., F.R.C.S.; Ann. Biogr. and Obit. 1821, pp. 138–48; Hoefer's Hist. de la Chemie, 1st edit. ii. 486; Kopp's Geschichte der Chemie, iii. 194, 200, and passim; Black's Lectures on Chemistry, ed. Robison, 1803, ii. 105; Britten and Boulger's Brit. Botanists; Index Cat. Libr. Surg.-Genl. United States Army; Historical Sketch of the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh.]

B. B. W.

RUTHERFORD, JOHN (d. 1577), divine, born at Jedburgh, studied under Nicolaus Gruchius at the college of Guienne at Bordeaux. He accompanied his teacher and George Buchanan (1506–1582) [q. v.] in their expedition to the new university of Coimbra, and thence in 1552 he proceeded to the university of Paris. His reputation attracted the notice of John Hamilton (1511?–1571) [q. v.], archbishop of St. Andrews, who offered him a chair in the college of St. Mary, which he had recently organised at St. Andrews (Hovæi Oratio, MS. in Archiv. Univ. St. Andr.); and, after teaching for some years as professor of humanity, Rutherford was translated in 1560 to be principal of St. Salvator's College in the same university. Soon after his admission to the university he was also made dean of the faculty of arts, although not qualified by the statutes. He had embraced the reformed doctrines abroad, and on 20 Dec. 1560 the assembly declared him one of those whom ‘they think maist qualified for ministreing and teaching,’ and on 25 June 1563 he was ordained minister of Cults, a parish in the gift of his college (Calderwood, Hist. of the Kirk, ii. 45; Keith, Affairs of Church and State, iii. 72).

Rutherford retained the provostship of St. Salvator's till a short time before his death, at the close of 1577. He had a son, John, who became minister of St. Andrews in 1584, and died of the plague in the following year.

Rutherford was the author of ‘De Arte Disserendi,’ lib. iv., Edinburgh, 1577, 4to: a work said by Thomas McCrie (1772–1835) [q. v.] to mark ‘a stage in the progress of philosophy in Scotland.’ He also wrote a reply to John Davidson's ‘Dialogue betwixt a Clerk and a Courteour,’ which was not printed; it incurred the censure of the assembly (Calderwood, iii. 310–12). There are further assigned to him ‘Collatio Philosophiæ Platonicæ et Aristotelicæ,’ ‘Collatio Divi Thomæ Aquinatis et Scoti in Philosophicis,’ and ‘Præfationes Solennes, Parisiis et Conimbriæ habitæ.’

[Scott's Fasti Ecclesiæ Scoticanæ, II. ii. 422, 483; McCrie's Life of Andrew Melville, i. 107–110, 127, 249; Dempster's Hist. Eccles. Gentis Scotorum, ii. 565; Masson's Register of Scottish Privy Council, 1569–78, p. 208.]

E. I. C.

RUTHERFORD, JOHN (1695–1779), physician, son of John Rutherford, minister of Yarrow, Selkirkshire, born 1 Aug. 1695, was educated at the grammar school of Selkirk. He entered the university of Edinburgh in 1709–10, and, after passing through the ordinary arts course, was apprenticed to Alexander Nesbit, an eminent surgeon, with whom he remained until 1716. He then proceeded to London, and attended the various hospitals, hearing the lectures of Dr. Douglas on anatomy and the surgical lectures of André. From London he went to Leyden, which Boerhaave was then rendering famous as a centre of medical teaching. He obtained the degree of M.D. at Rheims about the end of July 1719, and passed the winter of that year in Paris; he attended the private demonstrations of Winslow. In 1720 he returned to Great Britain. He settled in Edinburgh in 1721, and started, with Drs. Sinclair, Plummer, and Innes, a laboratory for the preparation of compound medicines, an art which was then little understood in Scotland. They also taught the rudiments of chemistry, and afterwards, by the advice of Boerhaave, lectured on other branches of physic. Each member of the band became a professor in the university of Edinburgh, Dr. Rutherford being appointed in 1726 to the chair of the practice of medicine, from which he delivered lectures in Latin until 1765, when he resigned. He was succeeded by Dr. James Gregory [q. v.]

Rutherford commenced the clinical teaching of medicine in the university of Edinburgh. In 1748 he was granted permission to give a course of clinical lectures in the Royal Infirmary. He encouraged his pupils to bring patients to him on Saturdays, when he inquired into the nature of the disease and prescribed for its relief in the presence of the class. The success of this innovation was so great, and the number of students increased so rapidly, that within two years the managers of the Royal Infirmary appropriated a special ward to the exclusive use of Rutherford, and they thus laid the foundation of that form of teaching in which the university of Edinburgh has long held a proud pre-eminence. Rutherford was buried on 10 March 1779 in Greyfriars Churchyard, Edinburgh. Sir Walter Scott says, in his ‘Autobiography:’ ‘In April