| Administrative History | James Gregory was the eldest son of John Gregory (1724 - 1773) and his wife, Elizabeth Forbes (c.1728 - 1761). His sister, Dorothea Gregory (c1754 - 1830), was a companion and favourite of Elizabeth Montagu (1718 - 1800). He was professor of institutes of medicine at the University of Edinburgh from 1766 to 1790, the joint chair of the practice of physic and institutes of medicine from 1790 to 1821, and was appointed first physician to the King in Scotland in 1799 (renewed on 18 May 1820 by George IV). He invented 'Gregory's Powder', one of the most-prescribed medicines of the nineteenth century, and is remembered as a successful physician and excellent teacher, popular with students and staff alike.
He received his early education at Aberdeen Grammar School and King's College, Aberdeen, then proceeded to Edinburgh where he took an arts course. He went to Christ Church, Oxford in 1776, but returned to Edinburgh in 1767 to study medicine under William Cullen, Alexander Monro secundus, Joseph Black, John Hope, and his father, John Gregory (1724 - 1773), finally graduating M.D. at Edinburgh in June 1774. During the following two years, he advanced his medical studies in Leiden, Paris and Italy.
In 1776 he was appointed to the chair of the institutes of medicine at the University of Edinburgh, following William Cullen's promotion to the chair of the practice of medicine there. He quickly built a solid reputation and attracted a strong following, such that in 1790 he was appointed joint professor of the practice of physic, with the right to survivorship, on Cullen's retirement. After Cullen's death he remained the sole occupant of this chair for the rest of his life, a post he conducted alongside a successful medical practice.
His 'Conspectus Medicinae Theoreticae' (1788) was an important textbook on the theory of medicine and the standard work for examination in medical Latin. However, much of his published work was devoted to other topics, inspired both through his artistic and literary interests and an apparently cantankerous habit of engaging in public disputes with his contemporaries.
James Gregory married Mary Ross in 1781, who died in 1784 without issue. In 1796 he married Isabella Macleod (c.1772 - 1847), with whom he had eleven children: John (1797 - 1869); Hugh (1799 - 1811); James Craufurd (1801 - 1832); William (1803 - 1858) and twin Donald (1803 - 1836); Jane Macleod (1805 - 1813); Elizabeth Forbes (1808 - 1811); Margaret Craufurd (1809 - 1849), who married her first cousin, William Pulteney Alison; Georgina (1811 - 1877); Duncan Farquharson (1813 - 1844); and Isabella (1816 - 1818). |
| Description | Certificate of membership of the [Old] Revolution Club, 17 November 1772; certificate of membership of the Students' Medical Society of the University of Edinburgh, 24 April 1773; certificate of attendance, University of Edinburgh, 1768 - 1772; freedom of the town of Musselburgh, 7 August 1779; commission as Captain in the 2nd Battalion of the 2nd Regiment of the Royal Edinburgh Volunteers, 10 March 1797; commission under the Privy Seal of Scotland appointing James Gregory first physician of Scotland to King George III, 18 December 1799; accounts relating to the professorship of James Gregory in the University of Edinburgh, 1776 - 1819; clinical or medical notes of James Gregory, c1790 - 1810; clinical lecture notes taken by D Campbell under James Gregory, 1786 - 1787; essay towards an investigation of the exact import and extent of the common notion of the relation of cause and effect in physics, 1780s; commonplace book, 1783 - ; lecture notes of James Gregory, c 1800; introductory lectures on the 'Theory of Physics, 'Preliminary Clinical Lectures" and "Preliminary Lectures on the Practice of Physic", 1783 - 1785; wallet belonging to James Gregory, 1820 - 1821; correspondence, inscriptions and miscellaneous papers belonging to James Gregory, 1784 - 1821; James Gregory: Clinical lecture notes taken under William Cullen. |