GILCHRIST, DR EBENEZER, an eminent Scotch physician, was born at Dumfries in 1707. He began the study of medicine at Edinburgh, which he afterwards prosecuted at London and Paris. He obtained the degree of doctor of medicine from the university of Rheims; and in the year 1732 he returned to the place of his nativity, where he afterwards constantly resided, and continued the practice of medicine till his death. It may with justice be said, that few physicians of the past century exercised their profession in a manner more respectable or more successful than Dr Gilchrist; and few have contributed so largely to the improvement of the healing art. Having engaged in business at an early period of life, his attention was wholly devoted to observation. Endowed by nature with a judgment
acute and solid, and a genius active and inventive, he soon distinguished himself by departing, in various important particulars, from established but unsuccessful modes of practice. Several of the improvements which he introduced have procured him great and deserved reputation both at home and abroad. His practice, in ordinary cases, was allowed to be judicious, and placed him high in the confidence and esteem of the inhabitants of that part of the country where he lived. But his usefulness was not confined to his own neighbourhood. Upon many occasions he was consulted by letter from the most distant parts of the country. In different collections are to be found several of his performances, which prove that he had something new and useful to offer upon every subject to which he applied himself. But those writings which do him the greatest honour are two dissertations on nervous fevers, in the medical essays and observations published by a society in Edinburgh; and a treatise on the use of sea voyages in medicine, which first made its appearance in the year 1757, and was afterwards reprinted in 1771. Dr Gilchrist died in 1774.