Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 3.djvu/149

Rh ledge, and no slight assiduity, lie executed with so much skill, judgment, and fidelity, that his work, immediately on publication, commanded the most extensive popularity, and became a standard authority in every medical school in Europe. Notwithstanding, indeed, that it has had to encounter the rivalship of other meritorious works on pharniaceutic chemistry and materia medica, it still maintains its pre-eminence. By Sir James Wylie it was made great use of in his Pharmacopoeia Castrensis Russica, published at Petersburg in 1808, for the use of the .Russian army. It has been since translated into German by Eschenbach, with a preface by professor Kuhn ; into French by Couverchel, and has been several times republished by different editors in America.

He next conferred an essential service not only on the university, but on the general interests of the community, by calling, in a strong and emphatic manner, attention to that branch of science, denominated by the Germans, state medicine, which comprehends the principles of the evidence afforded by the different branches of medicine, in elucidating and determining questions in courts of law. This study, to which the more appropriate term of medical jurisprudence was applied, had been chiefly confined to the Germans, nor had the advantages resulting from their labours been sufficiently communicated to other countries. This Dr Duncan fully perceived; he laid before the profession the substance of the few medico-legal works which had then been published on the continent; he pointed out, and advocated ably, the necessity of this department of medical science being systematically studied in this country; and, after combating many prejudices and overcoming many difficulties, succeeded in the cause he defended, and was rewarded by seeing the chair of medical jurisprudence instituted in the university. To his exertions, the profession we should rather say the public is indebted for the institution of this important professorship, and when we look at the current of public events, and the numerous complex and momentous cases that are continually agitated in our justiciary and civil courts, often implicating the liberty, fortunes, and even lives of our fellow-creatures, we cannot remain insensible of the great good he has achieved. The chair of medical jurisprudence and police was instituted in the Edinburgh university in 1807, and Dr Duncan was considered the most proper person to dis- charge its duties. He was therefore appointed the professor, and commenced his lectures the following session. He soon, by the lectures he delivered, and the numerous papers he published in his journal, impressed on the public mind the importance of the science he taught; and the interest he excited in its cultivation, both among his pupils, and medical practitioners generally, gave, in this country, the first impetus to the progress of medical jurisprudence.

He repeatedly, during this time, .was called upon to assist his father in officiating as physician in the clinical wards, and occasionally delivered clinical lectures. He also had at times the charge of the fever hospital at Queensberry house; to which, on the resignation of Dr Spens, he was elected physician. But his introduction into the university, brought on him an accumulation of labours, for he was shortly afterwards appointed secretary and also librarian; offices, the duties of which required at that period no ordinary exertions to discharge. Already it may have been gathered from the lives of Drs Cullen and Duncan, senior, that the Edinburgh university was at this time only just emerging from that original infantine state which must precede the maturer glory of all institutions, on however grand a scale ; and although Pitcairn, M'Laurin, the Monroes, Plummer, St Clair, Alston, and Cullen, had thrown over it a lustre which was recognized by men of science throughout Europe, yet its internal state and economy required the most assiduous attention and careful management. The library, which, from the charter of the college, was entitled to every published work.