DUNCAN, ANDREW, Junior, M.D.,
the son of the excellent physician whose memoir we have given above, is
entitled to a prominent rank among those who have distinguished themselves
in the history of medicine. He was born in Edinburgh on the 10th
August, 1773. At an early age he showed a predilection for medical
science, being, when yet very young, often found in his father’s library
poring over medical books; to gratify which inclinations he would often
rise at an early hour before the rest of the family. His father naturally,
therefore, destined him for the profession, and after going through the
preliminary course of education prescribed for youth, he commenced its
study in 1787. That he might become acquainted with the science in all its
practical details, he served a regular apprenticeship for five years with
Messrs Alexander and George Wood, fellows of the royal college of
surgeons; during which probation he toiled assiduously in laying the
foundation of his future reputation. He then went through a complete
course of literature and philosophy at the university, where, in 1793, he
was admitted master of arts, and in 1794, received the degree of doctor of
medicine.
With the view of acquiring
a still more competent knowledge of his profession, he spent the ensuing
winter, 1794-95, in London, where he attended the lectures on anatomy and
surgery, then delivered in Windmill Street, by Dr Baillie and Mr.
Cruickshank; and dissected under the superintendence of Mr Wilson. He
there also became a pupil of Dr George Pearson in chemistry, materia
medica, and medicine, and received unusual advantages and opportunities of
improvement from the attention and kindness of his father’s numerous
friends. He then proceeded to the continent. After spending some time in
Hamburg, Brunswick, and Hanover, for the purpose of acquiring the German
language, seeing the hospitals of these cities, and becoming personally
acquainted with the distinguished individuals at the head of the
profession there, he entered himself a student in the university of
Gottingen. There he attended the hospital under Richiter, and resided with
professor Grellman, and had the good fortune to enjoy the intimate
acquaintance of Blumenbach, Torisberg, Gmelin, Arnemann, Stromeyer, and
Heine, gaining besides the friendship of many of the most distinguished
students, who now fill chairs in the universities of Germany.
From Gottingen he went to
Vienna, visiting the hospitals and most of the celebrated men in the
various universities and capitals through which he passed; after which he
proceeded to Italy through the Tyrole, and having seen the hospitals at
Milan, resided during the winter at Pisa, in the house of Brugnatelli, the
professor of chemistry. He there attended the lectures and hospital
practice of Scarpa, whose friendship and correspondence he had ever
afterwards the honour of retaining; and also clinical medicine under
Joseph Frank, and natural history under Spallanzani. He then made the tour
of Italy as far as Naples, remained some time at Rome, and returned by
Padua, Venice, and Trieste, to Vienna, where he attended the clinical
lectures of John Peter Frank, then at the head of the profession in
Germany. From Vienna he returned home, through Prague, Leipsic, Halle,
Dresden, and Berlin, remaining in each long enough to see the public
institutions and become acquainted with the most celebrated men. During
this tour, not only did he acquire a more accurate and more extensive
knowledge concerning the medical institutions and the state of medical
science abroad than was at that time possessed by other medical men in
this country; but he attained a proficiency in foreign languages, and an
erudition in literature, which added all the accomplishments of a scholar
to his qualifications as a physician. Here, too, in leisure hours snatched
from severer studies, he cultivated his taste for the fine arts, more
especially for painting and music, in which he ever afterwards found a
charm to relieve him from the fatigues he had to encounter in the
laborious and anxious discharge of his professional and professorial
duties.
On his return to Edinburgh,
he assisted his father in editing the Medical Commentaries, which, as we
have already stated, extended to twenty volumes, and was succeeded by the
Annals of Medicine, on the title page of which the name of Dr Duncan
junior, first appeared along with that of his father as joint editors. But
at the request of lord Selkirk he was again induced to leave his native
city to visit the continent, for the purpose of attending his lordship’s
son, who was suffering under ill health. On his arrival, however, he found
that this young nobleman had expired; but the attainments of Dr Duncan
having attracted considerable notice on the continent, and being already
signalized by a portion of the fame he afterwards enjoyed, he was
solicited to prolong his stay in Italy, where he was by many invalids
professionally consulted, and again enjoyed the opportunity of prosecuting
his favourite pursuits. No man, perhaps, was ever more thoroughly imbued
with the love of knowledge. It was in him an innate desire, urging him on
with increasing restlessness to constant mental activity. He now remained
chiefly in Florence and Pisa nine months, where he lived on habits of
intimacy with the celebrated Fontana and Fabroni; after which, having
visited many places in Switzerland and Germany, which he had not passed
through during his former tour, he again returned to Edinburgh. He there
settled as a medical practitioner, and was elected a fellow of the royal
college of physicians, and shortly afterwards one of the physicians of the
royal public dispensary, founded by the exertions of his father, in 1773.
While actively engaged in
the practical department of his profession, he did not neglect the
application of his erudition and talents to the diffusion and advancement
of medical science among his professional brethren. In 1805, he undertook
the chief editorship of the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, which
has for twenty-seven years sustained the high reputation of being one of
the most valuable and influential medical journals in Europe. He acted
from the commencement as the chief editor, although for some time he was
assisted by Dr Kellie of Leith, Dr Balteman of London, Dr Reeve of
Norwich, and afterwards by Dr Craigie. But his chief and most valuable
contribution to medical science was the Edinburgh Dispensatory, the first
edition of which appeared in 1803. A similar work had been published by Dr
Lewis in London, in 1753, under the title of the New Dispensatory, but the
advancement of chemistry and pharmacy since that period, had rendered a
complete revision of it absolutely necessary. This task, which required no
ordinary extent and variety of knowledge, and no slight assiduity, he
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 pharmaceutic chemistry and materia medica it
still maintains its pre-eminence. By Sir James Wylie it was made great use
of in his Pharmacopia 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 discharge 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, was at this time, as may readily be supposed, a mass of confusion,
which to reduce to any thing like order was little less than an Hercolean
task. Added to this, the building of the university was yet
unfinished, and every possible inconvenience opposed the duties of the
librarian. Still the labours of Dr Duncan were incessant. He was then
appointed one of the commissioners for superintending the completion of
the building of the college; and the services which in both capacities he
rendered to the public, cannot be too highly estimated.
Having officiated for his
father and Dr Rutherford in the clinical wards of the royal infirmary
during the winter of 1817-18 and the summer of 1818, he published at the
end of that year reports of his practice, for the purpose of preserving a
faithful record of the epidemic, which at that time spread its ravages
through Edinburgh. His labours did not go unrewarded. In 1819, the patrons
of the university appointed him joint professor with his father in the
chair of the theory of medicine. His skill as a lecturer on physiology was
duly estimated by his pupils; but he did not retain this office long, for
in 1821, Dr Home being translated to the chair of the practice of physic,
he was elected in his place professor of materia medica and pharmacy. It
is worthy of observation, that so highly were the qualifications of Dr
Duncan appreciated, and so obviously did they entitle him to this honour,
that when it was understood that he had come forward as a candidate, no
person ventured to compete with him for the vacated chair. He commenced
his lectures at considerable disadvantage, being at the time in ill
health, owing to an accident he had recently met with; but his abilities
as a lecturer, and his profound knowledge of materia medica, with all its
collateral branches being well known, attracted crowds to his class, among
whom no individual can fail to remember how amply his expectations were
redeemed. In the discharge of his duties as a professor, he laboured most
conscientiously, sacrificing his own comforts and health for the
instruction of his pupils. During this season and indeed ever after, says
one who had every opportunity of knowing his domestic habits, "he was
often seated at his desk at three in the morning, for his lectures
underwent a continual course of additions and improvements." When, by the
tender solicitude of his own relatives, he was often entreated to relax
his incessant toils, and told that surely his task must be finished, he
would reply, that to medical knowledge there was no end, and that his
labours must be therefore infinite; and so truly they were, for it was one
of the peculiar traits of his character to be ever investigating, which he
did with unwearied patience, every new improvement and every new discovery
that was announced in this country or on the continent. His lectures on
materia medica were most comprehensive and profound, and attracted so
great a number of students to his class that the expectations which had
been formed of the good which the university would derive from his
promotion were amply fulfilled. He discharged the duties of this
professorship with unwearied zeal and assiduity for eleven years. We have
now arrived at the saddest period of his life. His constitution was never
strong. It was constantly preyed upon by the exertions of an over-active
mind, which allowed itself no repose. Had he been less solicitous about
the discharge of his duties and less zealous in the pursuit of science,
his health might have been invigorated and his life prolonged. But there
was that disparity between the powers and energies of his mind, and the
limited rigour of his body, which generally proves fatal to men of
superior attainments. He had for years toiled incessantly, bearing up
against the consciousness of ill health and physical suffering. His
anxiety to discharge his duties, indeed, absorbed every other
consideration, and prompted him to endure until endurance itself could no
longer obey its own high resolves. His strength, which had been severely
impaired by an attack of fever in 1827, which was contracted in the
discharge of his hospital duties, gradually declined. After persevering in
delivering his lectures until nearly the end of the session, he took to
his bed in April 1832, and having endured a lingering illness, during
which he displayed all that patience and moral courage which are
characteristic of a highly-gifted mind, he died on the 13th of the
following May, in the 58th year of his age. His funeral, according to his
own directions, was intended to be strictly private; but the members of
numerous institutions, anxious to show their affection for his memory, met
in the burial ground to attend the obsequies of their lamented friend.
Great energy and activity
of mind, a universality of genius that made every subject, from the most
abstruse to the most trivial, alike familiar to him, and a devoted love of
science, which often led him to prefer its advancement to the
establishment of his own fame, were his distinguishing traits. So well was
he known and appreciated on the continent, that he received, unsolicited
on his part, honorary degrees and other distinctions from the most famous
universities; and few foreigners of distinction visited Edinburgh without
bringing introductions to him. He had the honour of being in the habit of
correspondence with many of the most distinguished persons in Europe,
whether celebrated for high rank, or superior mental endowments. He had a
great taste for the fine arts in general, and for music in particular; and
from his extensive knowledge of languages, was well versed in the
literature of many nations. His manners were free from pedantry or
affectation, and were remarkable for that unobtrusiveness which is often
the peculiar characteristic of superior genius. He possessed a delicacy of
feeling and a sense of honour and integrity amounting, in the estimation
of many, to fastidiousness, but which were the elements of his moral
character. He was indeed as much an ornament to private as to public life.
Among his contributions to
medical science deserving especial notice may be enumerated his
experiments on Peruvian bark, whereby he discovered cinchonin, and paved
the way for the discovery of the vegetable alkaloids, which has so
essentially contributed to the advancement of pharmaceutic science; his
examination of the structure of the heart and the complicated course of
its fibres; his paper on diffuse inflammation of the cellular tissue; and
more recently his Experiments on Medicine, communicated to the royal
society of Edinburgh so late as December 1830. In addition to these, and
besides the numerous essays written in his own journal, he contributed to
the Edinburgh Review the articles on the Pharmacopoeia of the Royal
College of Physicians—on Vaccination—and on Dr Thomson’s System of
Chemistry; and to the Supplement of the Encyclopedia Britannica those on
Aqua Toffana, Digestion, and Food. |