author multiplied, must thus have formed n very considerable library." An accurate catalogue of these is prefixed to Watson's Horace.[1]
In addition to the works we have mentioned, Ur Douglas projected a splendid design of one on the bones, and another on Hernia, which, notwithstanding the great advancement of medical science since his time, we regret that he did not live to complete. He died in the year 1742, in the sixty-seventh year of his age; and when we consider the period in which he lived, and the essential services he rendered towards the advancement of medical science, the homage of the highest respect is due to his memory.
DOUGLAS, John, the brother of the eminent physician whose biography we have already given, attained to considerable eminence as a surgeon, in which capacity he officiated to the Westminster infirmary. His name is principally distinguished among those of other medical men, for his celebrity as a lithotomist, and for having written a treatise insisting on the utility of bark in mortification. His work on the high operation for the stone, obtained for him considerable reputation; and will give the medical reader an accurate notion of the state of the surgical art at the period in which he lived. He also practised midwifery, and criticised with no inconsiderable asperity the works of Chamberlain and Chapman. He appears, indeed, to have been the author of several controversial works, which have deservedly floated down the stream of time into obscurity. Among others we may notice one, entitled "Remarks on a late pompous Work;" a severe and very unjust criticism on Cheselden's admirable Osteology. He wrote some useful treatises on the employment of purgatives in Syphilis; but by far his most important was "an account of Mortifications, and of the surprising effect of Bark in putting a stop to their progress." "This remedy had already been tried successfully in gout by Sydenham; in typhus by Ramazzini and Lanzoni ; by Monro, Wall, and Huxham, in malignant variolo; and after Rushwoith had tried it in the gangrene following intermittent fevers, it was introduced by Douglas, and afterwards by Shipton, Grindall, Werlhof, and Heister, in ordinary cases of gangrene.[2] This same Scottish family, we may add, gave birth to Robert Douglas, who published a treatise on the generation of animal heat; but the rude state of Physiology, and of animal chemistry, at that period, rendered abortive all speculation on this difficult, but still interesting subject of investigation.
DOUGLAS, John, D. D., bishop of Salisbury, was born at Pittenweem, Fifeshire, in the year 1721. His father was Mr John Douglas, a respectable merchant of that town, a son of a younger brother of the ancient family of Tilliquilly. Young Douglas commenced his education at the schools of Dunbar, whence in the year 1736, he was removed, and entered commoner of St Mary's college, Oxford. In the year 1738, he was elected exhibitioner on bishop Warner's foundation, in Baliol college; and in 1741, he took his bachelor's degree. In order to acquire a facility in speaking the French language, he went abroad, and remained for some time at Montreal in Picardy, and afterwards at Ghent in Flanders. Having returned to college in 1743, he was ordained deacon, and in the following year he was appointed chaplain to the third foot guards, and joined the regiment in Flanders, where it was then serving with the allied army. During the period of his service abroad, Dr Douglas occupied himself chiefly in the study of modern languages; but at the same time he took a lively interest in the operations of the army, and at the battle of Fontenoy, was employed in carrying orders from general Campbell to a detachment of English troops. He returned to England along with that body of troops, which was
