Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 9.djvu/318

582 Ten sermons on various subjects. These were transcribed from family MSS., and issued by the Cheap Publication Society of the Free Church of Scotland in 1845.

TROTTER,, M.D., who held at one time the important office of physician to the Channel fleet, was born in Roxburghshire, educated at the university of Edinburgh, and while still young, was appointed surgeon in the Royal Navy in 1782. Finding occupation in his own particular department too scanty, or rival aspirants too numerous, he turned his attention to the African trade, and was, as he has informed us, the first of his professional corps who was obliged to betake himself to that humble and somewhat perilous vocation. Returning from Africa in 1785, he settled as a medical practitioner at a small town in Northumberland, and obtained the degree of M.D. at Edinburgh, in 1788. Better days now began to dawn upon him; for on the following year he was appointed, through the patronage of Admiral Roddam, surgeon to that commander's flag-ship; in 1793, he was made physician to the Royal Hospital ut Portsmouth, and in 1794, physician to the fleet.

This was high as well as rapid promotion for one who had been fain to commence his pursuit of fortune in a merchant ship, and under the baneful sun of Africa; but the first step in his ascent once secured, Dr. Trotter soon showed his fitness for the eminence to which he was raised, for in 1790, only a year after his first appointment, he published a "Review of the Medical Department of the British Navy." Such also was his care for the health of the naval service, the important improvements he introduced into its regulations, and his attention to the due promotion of merit among the navy surgeons, that all classes combined in acknowledging his worth. After having occupied the important charge of physician to the fleet for several years, he retired upon a pension of £200 per annum, and settled at Newcastle, where he practised with reputation till his death, which occurred in that town on the 5th September, 1832.

As an author, Dr. Trotter was known to the medical world at large by the excellent works he published, as well as the reforms he effected in the British navy. A list of these productions we here give in their order:—

1. "Treatise on the Scurvy."

2. "Thesis ’De Ebrietate.’" 1788.

3. "Review of the Medical Department of the British Navy." 1790. A work to which we have already adverted.

4. "Medical and Chemical Essays." 1796.

5. "Medico, Nautica y or an Essay on the Diseases of Seamen." 3 vols., 8vo. 1799.

6. "Essay on Drunkenness." 1804. This was a translation with additions of his Thesis which he had written in 1788, and which had been highly commended by Dr. Cullen.

7. "An Address to the Proprietors and Managers of Coal Mines, on the Means of Destroying Damp." 1806.

8. "A View of the Nervous Temperament ; being a Practical Treatise on Nervous, Bilious, Stomach, and Liver Complaints." 8vo. 1812.

Dr. Trotter was a poet as well as physician, and his productions in this department, forgotten though they now are, excited during their own day such an amount of respectful attention, as mere common rhymes could scarcely have obtained. First in the list of these was his "Suspiria Oceani," being a