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 reprint of the article in the eighth edition of the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica,’ and ‘Proposal for the Illumination of Beacons and Buoys,’ 1870.

Stevenson was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1848, served frequently on its council, and became its president in 1885. He was elected a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1864, and president of the Royal Scottish Society of Arts in 1859–60. His contributions to the transactions of these and other societies were many and varied. Outside his profession his interests were mainly concentrated on meteorology. He was one of the originators of the Scottish Meteorological Society in 1855, was member of council from the commencement, and, on the death of Dr. [q. v.] in 1871, was elected its honorary secretary. Among the original and permanent contributions he made to meteorology were the Stevenson screen for the protection of thermometers, designed in 1864, and now in universal use; the introduction in 1867 into meteorological investigations of the term ‘barometric gradient,’ which is now commonly employed in the science; and the means of ascertaining, by high and low level observations, the vertical gradients for atmospheric pressure, temperature, and humidity which are fundamental data in meteorology.

In later years Stevenson published ‘Christianity confirmed by Jewish and Heathen Testimony, and the Deductions from Physical Science,’ Edinburgh, 1877, 2nd edit. 1879. He died at his house, 17 Heriot Row, Edinburgh, on 8 May 1887. By his wife, Margaret Isabella, daughter of the Rev. James Balfour, minister of Colinton, he was father of [q. v.] His widow died on 14 May 1897.



STEVENSON, WILLIAM (1719?–1783), physician, an Irishman by birth, born about 1719, was first cousin to Andrew Thomas Stewart, sixth baron Stewart of Stewart Castle, co. Tyrone. The Stewarts removed to Scotland in consequence of the troublous times in Ireland at the beginning of the eighteenth century, and it was probably for this reason that Stevenson received his medical education at the university of Edinburgh. Here he studied under Alexander Monro I and Alexander Monro II, (1695–1779) [q. v.], Whytt, and Cullen. He graduated M.D. with the inaugural thesis ‘De Diabete,’ and remained in the city two years longer, partly to study medicine further and partly for instruction in divinity. He was one of the earliest members of the Edinburgh Medical Society, founded in 1737, and he appears to have served for a time in the army, for he says that he ‘was formerly commander of one of his majesty's forts.’ He practised for some time at Coleraine in Ireland, and then moved to Wells in Somerset, where he was practising as a physician in 1779. He lived for a short time at Bath, but moved to Newark at the end of May 1781. Here he died suddenly on 13 April 1783.

A presbyterian in religion and a Jacobite in politics, Stevenson in his later years was constantly at variance with his surroundings. He hated the apothecaries, he despised the College of Physicians, and he abhorred the therapeutic measures adopted by his contemporaries. His pen was venomous, and he spent his life lampooning and being lampooned. He appears to have been a shrewd physician, magnifying his calling, disbelieving in the efficacy of drugs or of bleeding, but with an abiding faith in the curative value of blisters and issues. His contemporaries regarded him as a malignant quack, who endeavoured to destroy their lucrative practice by explaining away the remedial action of the Bath waters in gout.

His works were:
 * 1) ‘A Successful Method of treating the Gout by Blistering, with an Introduction consisting of Miscellaneous Matter,’ Bath, 1779, 8vo.
 * 2) ‘Cases of Medicine interspersed with Strictures occasioned by some late Medical Transactions in the town of Newark,’ London, 1782, 8vo.
 * 3) ‘Dr. Stevenson's Reply to a Letter addressed to Dr. Stevenson of Newark by Ed. Harrison,’ Newark, 1782, 8vo.
 * 4) ‘Candid Animadversions on … a Singular Gouty Case, to which are prefixed Strictures on Royal Medical Colleges, likewise a summary Opinion of the late Disorder called the Influenza,’ Newark, 1782, 8vo.
 * 5) ‘Considerations on the Dangerous Effects of Promiscuous Blood-letting and the common Preposterous Administration of Drugs, with other Coincident Subjects, Medical and Moral,’ Newark, 1783, 8vo. This work is incomplete, and was published after Stevenson's death.



STEVENSON, WILLIAM (1772–1829), keeper of the records in the treasury, son of a captain in the royal navy, was born at Berwick-upon-Tweed on 26 Nov.