Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 2.djvu/317

Rh cime forward, and presented an address to the lord provost, magistrates, and town council, wherein they boldly stated, "we are humbly of opinion that the reputation of the university and magistrates, the good of the city, and our improvement will all, in an eminent manner, be consulted by engaging Dr Gregory to relinquish the professorship of the practice for that of the theory of medicine, by appointing Dr Cullen, present professor of chemistry, to the practical chair, and by electing Dr Black professor of chemistry."

At length Dr Cullen consented to become a candidate for the chair of Dr Whytt, and was elected professor of the institutes or theory of medicine, on the 1st of November, 1766; and, on the same day, his friend and former pupil Dr Black was elected in his place professor of chemistry. The proposal in the address of the students respecting Dr Cullen's lecturing on the practice of medicine, being, both by the professors and succeeding students, urged on the consideration of the patrons of the university, it was agreed that Dr Cullen should be permitted to lecture on that subject, and accordingly, with Dr Gregory's permission, Dr Cullen delivered a course of lectures in the summer of 1768, and during the remainder of Dr Gregory's life, Drs Cullen and Gregory continued to give alternate courses on the theory and practice of physic. The death of Dr Gregory, however, took place on the 10th of February, 1773, and Dr Cullen was immediately appointed sole professor of the practice of physic.

While Dr Cullen held the professorship of the institutes of medicine, he published heads of lectures for the use of students in the university; which were translated into French, German, and Italian; but he went no further than physiology. After succeeding to the chair of the practice of physic, he published his Nosology, entitled "Synopsæ Nosologiæ Methodical" It appeared in two 8vo volumes, which were afterwards in 1780 much improved. In this valuable work he inserted in the first volume abstracts of the nosological systems of Sauvages, Linnaeus, Vogel, and Sagar;—and in the second his own method of arrangement. His classification and definitions of disease have done much to systematise and facilitate the acquirement of medical knowledge; not but that, in some instances, he may have placed a disease under an improper head; and in others given definitions that are very imperfect, for these are defects, which, considering the wide field he had to explore, might reasonably have been expected. Although it may be only an approximation to a perfect system, it is desirable to classify, as far as we are able, the facts which constitute the ground-work of every science; otherwise they must be scattered over a wide surface, or huddled together in a confused heap the rudis indigestaque moles of the ancient poet. The definitions contained in this Nosology are not mere scholastic and unnecessary appendages to medical science; so far from this, they express the leading and characteristic signs or features of certain diseases, and although it is true that a medical practitioner, without recollecting the definitions of Dr Cullen, may recognize the very same symptoms he has described, and refer them to their proper disease, still this does not prove that the definitions of Cullen are the less useful to those who have not seen so much practice, and who, even if they had, might pass over without observing many symptoms to which, by those definitions, their attention is called. The professors and teachers of every science know the necessity of inducing their pupils to arrange and concentrate their thoughts on every subject, in a clear and distinct manner: and in effecting this, the study of the Nosology of Dr Cullen has been found so useful, that it is still constantly used by the students of the university, who find that, even although their professors do not at present require them to repeat the definitions of disease, given by Dr Cullen, verbatim, still they cannot express themselves, nor find, in any other nosological work, the method or man-