GREGORY

GREGORY, Dr John, professor of medicine in the university of Edinburgh, was the son of Dr James Gregory, professor of medicine in King's College, Aberdeen, and grandson of James, the inventor of the Gregorian telescope. His father was married first to Catharine Forbes, daughter of Sir John Forbes of Monymusk, by whom he had six children, most of whom died in infancy; and afterwards to Ann Chalmers, only daughter of the Reverend George Chalmers, principal of King's College, by whom he had two sons and a daughter. John, the youngest of the three, was born at Aberdeen on the 3d of June 1724. Having lost his father when only in the seventh year of

Gregory, his age, the care of his education devolved on his grandfather Principal Chalmers, and on his elder brother Dr James Gregory, who, upon the resignation of their father a short time before his death, had been appointed to succeed him in the professorship in King's College. He likewise owed much in his infant years, and indeed during the whole course of his studies, to the care and attention of his cousin, the celebrated Dr Reid, afterwards of the university of Glasgow. The rudiments of his classical education he received at the grammar-school of Aberdeen; and under the eye of his grandfather he completed, in King's College, his studies in the Latin and Greek languages, and in the sciences of ethics, mathematics, and natural philosophy. His master in philosophy and in mathematics was Thomas Gordon, professor of philosophy in King's College, who ably filled an academical chair for above half a century.

In 1742 Mr Gregory went to Edinburgh, where the school of medicine was then rising into that celebrity for which it has since been so remarkably distinguished. Here he attended the anatomical lectures of the elder Dr Monro, of Dr Sinclair on the theory of medicine, and of Dr Rutherford on the practice of physic. He heard likewise the prelections of Dr Alston on the materia medica and botany, and of Dr Plummer on chemistry. The Medical Society of Edinburgh, instituted for the free discussion of all questions relative to medicine and philosophy, had begun to meet in 1737. Of this society we find Mr Gregory a member in 1742, at the time when Dr Mark Akenside, his fellow-student and intimate companion, was a member of the same institution.

In the year 1745 our author went to Leyden, and attended the lectures of Professors Gaubius, Albinus, and Van Royen. Whilst at this university he had the honour of receiving from the King's College of Aberdeen, his alma mater, an unsolicited degree of doctor of physic; and soon afterwards, on his return from Holland, he was elected professor of philosophy in the same university. In this capacity he read lectures during the years 1747, 1748, and 1749, on mathematics, experimental philosophy, and ethics. In the end of 1749, however, he resigned his professorship of philosophy, his views being turned chiefly to the practice of physic, with which the duties of this professorship, occupying as they did a great portion of his time, too much interfered. Previously, however, to his settling as a physician at Aberdeen, he went for a few months to the Continent; a tour of which the chief motive was probably amusement, though to a mind like his certainly not without advantage in the enlargement of ideas, and an increased knowledge of mankind.

Some time after his return to Scotland, Dr Gregory married, in 1752, Elizabeth, daughter of William Lord Forbes, a young lady who, to the exterior endowments of great beauty and engaging manners, joined a very superior understanding and an uncommon share of wit. With her he received a handsome addition of fortune; and during the whole period of their union, which was only for the space of nine years, he enjoyed the highest portion of domestic happiness. Of her character it is enough to say, that her husband, in the admired little work, A Father's Legacy to his Daughters, the last proof of his affection for them, declares, that "while he endeavours to point out what they should be, he draws but a very faint and imperfect picture of what their mother was." The field of medical practice at Aberdeen being at that time in a great measure pre-occupied by his elder brother Dr James Gregory, and others of some note in their profession, our author determined to try his fortune in London. Thither accordingly he proceeded in 1754; and being already known by reputation as a man of genius, he found an easy introduction to many persons of distinction,

both in the literary and polite world. Amongst these may be mentioned George Lord Lyttleton, who became his friend and patron. An acquaintance, which had been founded on a striking similarity of manners, tastes, and dispositions, grew up into a firm and permanent friendship; and to that nobleman, to whom Dr Gregory was accustomed to communicate all his literary productions, the world is indebted for the publication of the Comparative View of the State and Faculties of Man, which made him first known as an author. Dr Gregory likewise enjoyed the friendship of Edward Montagu and his lady, the celebrated champion of the fame of Shakespeare, against the cavils and calumnies of Voltaire.

In 1754 Dr Gregory was chosen fellow of the Royal Society of London; and as he made daily advances in the public esteem, it is not to be doubted that, had he continued his residence in the metropolis, his professional talents would have found their reward in an extensive practice. But the death of his brother, Dr James Gregory, in November 1755, having occasioned a vacancy in the professorship of physic in King's College, Aberdeen, which he was solicited to fill, he returned to his native country in the beginning of the following year, and took upon him the duties of that office, to which he had been elected in his absence.

Here he remained until the end of the year 1764, when, urged by a laudable ambition, and presuming on the reputation he had acquired as affording a reasonable prospect of success in a more extended field of practice, he changed his place of residence for Edinburgh. His friends in that metropolis had represented to him the situation of the medical school as favourable to his views of filling a chair in that university; and this accordingly he obtained in 1766, on the resignation of Dr Rutherford, professor of the practice of physic. In the same year he had the honour of being appointed first physician to his majesty for Scotland on the death of Dr Whytt.

On his first establishment in the university of Edinburgh, Dr Gregory gave lectures on the practice of physic during the years 1767, 1768, and 1769. Afterwards, by agreement with Dr Cullen, professor of the theory of physic, these two eminent men gave alternate courses on the theory and practice of physic. As a public speaker, Dr Gregory's manner was simple, natural, and animated. Without the graces of oratory, which the subject he had to treat in a great degree precluded, he expressed his ideas with uncommon perspicuity, and in a style happily tempered between the formality of studied composition and the ease of conversation. It was his custom to meditate, for a short time before entering the college, the subject of his lecture, consulting those authors to whom he had occasion to refer, and marking in short notes the arrangement of his intended discourse; then, fully master of his subject, and confident of his own powers, he trusted to his natural facility of expression to convey those opinions which he had maturely deliberated. The only lectures which he committed fully to writing were those introductory discourses which he read at the beginning of his annual course, and which are published under the title of Lectures on the Duties and Qualifications of a Physician. Of these, which were written with no view to publication, many copies were taken by his pupils, and some from the original manuscript, which he freely lent for their perusal. On hearing that a copy had been offered for sale to a bookseller, it became necessary to anticipate a fraudulent, and perhaps a mutilated publication, by authorizing an impression from a corrected copy, of which he gave the profits to a favourite pupil. These lectures were first published in 1770, and afterwards in an enlarged and more perfect form in 1772.

In the same year, 1772, Dr Gregory published Ele-

ments of the Practice of Physic, for the use of Students; a work intended solely for his own pupils, and to be used by himself as a text-book to be commented upon in his course of lectures. In an advertisement prefixed to this work, he signified his intention of comprehending in it the whole series of diseases of which he had treated in his lectures on the Practice of Physic; but this intention he did not live to accomplish, having brought down the work further than to the end of the class of Febrile Diseases.

Dr Gregory became early a victim to the gout, which began to show itself at irregular intervals even from the eighteenth year of his age. His mother, from whom he inherited that disease, died suddenly in 1770, whilst sitting at table. Dr Gregory had prognosticated for himself a similar death; an event of which, amongst his friends, he often talked, but had no apprehension of the nearness of its approach. In the beginning of the year 1773, whilst in conversation with his son Dr James Gregory, the latter remarked, that having for the three preceding years had a return of an attack, he might expect a pretty severe one that season; and he received the observation with some degree of anger, as he felt himself then in his usual state of health. The prediction, however, proved but too true; for having gone to bed on the 9th of February 1773, with no apparent disorder, he was found dead in the morning. His death had been instantaneous, and probably in his sleep; for there was not the smallest discomposure of limb or feature.