Manuscript recording the lectures of George Fordyce on inflammatory diseases

The manuscript volume - ink on paper - is titled on the spine Fordyce on inflammations. It may have been copied in 1807, which is after Fordyce's death in 1802.

The content includes much on venereal disease and other headings include 'hooping cough', 'angina', inflammation of the lungs', 'inflammation of the intestines', 'inflammation of the substances of the liver', 'inflammation of the womb', 'on the causes of cold', 'on catarrh', 'sore throat attended with ulcers', 'the treatment of cholera', and, 'the symptoms of a stone in the bladder'.

The name of the owner is on the fly-leaf, with erasure. There over 220 numbered pages.

The physician George Fordyce was born in Aberdeen in 1736. He graduated from the Medical School of Edinburgh University in 1785, having been a leading student of William Cullen (1710-1790). He then moved to London to attend the anatomical lectures given by John Hunter (1728-1793). In 1759 he travelled to Leiden, studying with Bernhard Albinus.

On his return to London, Fordyce began lecturing on chemistry and materia medica, and in 1770 became physician to St. Thomas's Hospital, London. In 1778 he was admitted into the Royal College of Physicians. he also played a leading role in the preparation of a new and updated version of the Pharmacopoeia Londinensis.

George Fordyce died in 1802.

Open to bona fide researchers, but please contact repository for details in advance of visit.

Material acquired by purchase. Accession no: E2011.25.

Compiled by Graeme D. Eddie, Edinburgh University Library, Special Collections.

Also within Special Collections, Edinburgh University Library, are the following: letter of Fordyce to Professor Cullen, 9 August 1760, at La.II.647/176*; and, letter about his experiment with heat and weight from Dr. J. Lind to Professor Black, 27 March 1785, at Gen. 874/IV/11-22.