Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 18.djvu/360

 of his relatives, a practitioner in Soho, and in attendance at the lectures of the Great Windmill Street school of anatomy. After an interval of general study at Heidelberg, he joined the medical classes at Edinburgh and graduated M.D. in 1823. Through his family connections he became intimate in the circle of Sir Walter Scott, and on proceeding to London brought with him an introduction from Lockhart to Mr. Murray of Albemarle Street, who introduced him to literary circles in the metropolis. For Murray's ‘Family Library’ he afterwards compiled two volumes, anonymously, on the ‘Natural History of Insects,’ and for the ‘Quarterly Review’ he wrote ten articles from 1829 to 1854, most of them medical, and one or two of a philosophico-religious kind. His first publication, dated in 1825 from Baker Street, was a letter to Sir H. Halford proposing a combination of the old inoculation of small-pox with vaccination. After travelling abroad for a time as medical attendant, he took the post of resident medical officer at the Marylebone Infirmary, where he learned from Dr. Hooper ‘many of those strange resources and prescriptions on which, to the surprise of many of his contemporaries, he was wont to rely with entire confidence in some of the greatest emergencies of medical practice’. With the support of Dr. Gooch he entered on special obstetric practice, was appointed physician to the Westminster Lying-in Hospital, and professor of obstetrics at the newly founded King's College in 1831. In 1827 he had been active in founding the ‘London Medical Gazette’ as an organ of conservative opinion in medical politics and of academical views in medical science. Along with Watson he attended Sir Walter Scott in 1831 when he passed through London in broken health on his way to Naples, and again in 1832 on his way back. He became a fellow of the College of Physicians in 1837, and afterwards councillor and censor. In 1840 he was appointed physician-accoucheur to the queen, in which capacity he attended, along with Sir C. Locock, at the birth of all her majesty's children. About 1857 he gradually withdrew from his extensive obstetric practice, and took the bold step of entering the field as a general medical consultant. In the opinion of Sir T. Watson his success in attaining the first rank was remarkable, considering that he had not served as physician to a large general hospital. Among his patients were distinguished leaders in politics and literature, many of whom became attached to him in private friendship. He had a fine presence and a somewhat imperious will. His professional writings belong to the earlier period of his practice: ‘Puerperal Fever,’ 1839; ‘Diseases of the Uterus and Ovaria,’ in Tweedie's ‘Library of Medicine;’ and an edition of Gooch's papers on the ‘Diseases of Women,’ with concise introductory essay, for the New Sydenham Society, 1859. He died at his cottage at Winkfield, Berkshire, on 25 June 1865. He married, first, in 1830, a lady of the French family of Labalmondière, and secondly, in 1846, Mary, daughter of Macleod of Dunvegan, by whom he had five children.

[Med. Times and Gaz. 1865, ii. 13; Sir T. Watson's Presidential Address, Coll. of Phys., Lancet, 31 March 1866; Munk's Coll. of Phys. iii. 295; Lockhart's Life of Scott, chaps. lxxxi. and lxxxiii.]  FERGUSON, RONALD CRAUFURD (1773–1841), general, second son of William Ferguson of Raith, Fifeshire, by Jane, daughter of Ronald Craufurd of Restalrig, sister of Margaret, countess of Dumfries, was born at Edinburgh on 8 Feb. 1773. He entered the army as an ensign in the 53rd regiment on 3 April 1790, and was promoted lieutenant on 24 Jan. 1791. He then paid a long visit to Berlin in order to study the Prussian system of discipline, and on his return he was promoted captain on 19 Feb. 1793. In this year, on the outbreak of the great war with France, Ferguson's regiment, the 53rd, was despatched to Flanders, where it was brigaded with the 14th and 37th regiments under the command of Major-general Ralph Abercromby, who took particular notice of Ferguson, as a young Scotchman of singular bodily strength and activity. Ferguson served throughout the campaign of 1793, at the siege of Valenciennes, and in the battles which led to the Duke of York's retreat from Dunkirk. In October 1793 the 53rd formed part of the garrison of Nieuwpoort, under the command of Lieutenant-general Sir Charles Grey, and during the constant fighting which took place in front of that town the 53rd was much engaged. Ferguson, who was wounded in the knee, was specially praised in despatches. In the following year he left Flanders on being promoted major into the 84th regiment on 31 May 1794, and on 18 Sept. 1794, though only twenty-one, he was promoted lieutenant-colonel and appointed to command the newly raised 2nd battalion of that regiment. He was at once ordered to India, and in 1795 his regiment was one of those which co-operated from India, under Major-general Sir Alured Clarke, in the reduction of the Cape of Good Hope. On his return to India he was stationed at Cawnpore, and there married Jean, natural daughter of General Sir Hector Munro [q. v.], in