Memorial for Dr. Hamilton, Professor of Midwifery in the College of Edinburgh, respectfully submitted to the Right Honourable the Lord Provost, Magistrates and Town Council of Edinburgh, patrons of the said college.

  • Hamilton, James, 1767-1839.
Date:
[1824]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Memorial for Dr. Hamilton, Professor of Midwifery in the College of Edinburgh, respectfully submitted to the Right Honourable the Lord Provost, Magistrates and Town Council of Edinburgh, patrons of the said college. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    At the same time (9th February 1826) a Professorship of Midwifery was instituted in the College; but the person nominated, a Mr. Gil)- son, resided in Leith, and never taught in the College. On his death, in 1739, Mr. Robert Smith, Surgeon in Edinburgh, succeeded to the Professorship; but he also declined teaching. And in the year ] 756, on Mr. Smith’s resignation, Mr. Thomas Young, also Surgeon in Edinburgh, obtained the Chair, and began to give Lectures both to Male and Female Pupils. According to the fashion of the times, Mr. Young Confined his Lec- tures chiefly to the mode of assisting Women in Child-birth, by which it was quite unnecessary for Physicians to attend his Lectures, and consequently the Professorship of Midwdfery could not be included in the Medical Faculty; and indeed Mr. Young continued a Surgeon till the year 1776, when he took his degree of Doctor of Medicine at the College of Edinburgh. Dr. John Hope, in the year 1768, who had succeeded Dr. Alston as Botanist, and Professor of Medicine, Botany, and Materia Medica, resigned the duty of lecturing on Materia Medica, that is, on the Na- ture and qualities of Drugs, in favour of Dr. Francis Home; and thus a sixth Professor was added to tlie Medical Faculty, all the Members of which had now obtained a place in the Senatus Academicus. In the year 1780, Dr. Alexander Hamilton, the INIemorialist’s Father, was conjoined with Dr. Young in the Professorship of Midwifery, and on the Doctor’s decease, in 1783, succeeded to the sole charge; and he extended very considerably the Directions for the Treatment of the Diseases of Women and Children. The Memorialist, after having assisted his Father for several years in the duties of teaching, had the honour of being appointed, in the year 1800, Professor of Midwifery; and he deemed it necessary to ex-