Notes from Dr. Duncan's lectures on medical jurisprudence taken down by Charles Anderson, 1792-73

The manuscript notes are held in a bound volume, numbered to page 703. Written in longhand is a title page: 'Notes / from / Dr. Duncan's / Lectures / on / Medical Jurisprudence / Taken by / Charles Anderson / 1792-3'. Some final pages of the volume contain a copy of Heads of Lectures on Medical Jurisprudence, or the Institutiones Medicinae Legalis. Delivered at the University of Edinburgh, By Andrew Duncan, M. D. and P. The autograph signature of Charles Anderson appears at the top of the title page of this 'supplement'. The front boadr of the volume contains, paste-in, a newspaper advertisement for Heads of Lectures on Medical Jurisprudence, or the Institutiones Medicinae Legalis. Delivered at the University of Edinburgh, By Andrew Duncan, M. D. and P. Included are the dates and times of the lectures in 1792. The fee for the course of lectures is One Guinea.

Andrew Duncan was born at Pinkerton, near St. Andrews on 17 October 1744. His father was a merchant and shipmaster at Crail and then St. Andrews. The young Andrew was educated in Crail and then in St. Andrews, and he studied at St. Andrews University obtaining an M.A. in 1762. That same year he entered Edinburgh University as a medical student. During his studies, in 1764, he became President of the Royal Medical Society.

On completion of his studies in 1768, Duncan went to China as a ship's surgeon for the East India Company. On his return in 1769 he graduated with the degree of M.D. at St. Andrews University. In 1770, he became a Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh, and the same year he tried unsuccessfully for a professorship in St. Andrews. However, when Dr. Drummond the elected-Professor of Medicine at Edinburgh University fell ill, during his absence Duncan was appointed to lecture there from 1774. When Drummond failed to return, he was elected Professor.

Duncan then began a public dispensary which later became the Royal Public Dispensary. In 1789, he was appointed to the Chair of the Institutes of Medicine (physiology) and in 1790 he became President of the Royal College of Physicians.

Moved by the death of the poet Robert Ferguson (1750-1774), Duncan was instrumental in the foundation of Edinburgh Lunatic Asylum, the building of which was begun in 1809 (In 1922 it became the Royal Edinburgh Hospital for Mental and Nervous Disorders, and today is known simply as the Royal Edinburgh Hospital).

In 1819, Andrew Duncan junior (1773-1832) was appointed to assist him in his Professorship, and in 1821 he became the first Physician to the King (or Queen) in Scotland. That same year he became President of the Edinburgh Medico-Chirurgical Society.

During his career, Duncan began publication of the quarterly Medical and philosophical commentaries (1773-1795) which went on to become Annals of medicine, and he also published Elements of therapeutics (1770), The new dispensatory (1786), and Observations on the distinguishing symptoms of three different species of pulmonary consumption (1813).

Professor Andrew Duncan died on 5 July 1828.

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Accession no: E2014.77

Catalogued by Graeme D. Eddie 23 April 2015