SCOTS AS PHYSICIANS

A prominent physician of early colonial times was Dr. Gustavus Brown (1689-1765), born in Dalkeith, and died in Maryland.  Dr. Gustavus Richard Brown (1747-1804), born in Maryland and educated at Edinburgh University, his son, also made a reputation for himself as a physician of ability.  Dr. Gustavus Brown (1744-1801), grandson of the first named, was summoned to attend President Washington in his last illness.  Dr. John Lining (1708-1760), born in Scotland, settled in Charleston, S.C., in 1730, gained a large practice through his skill as a physician, and a distinguished reputation in Europe as a scientist from his experiments in electricity, etc.  His meteorological observations were probably the first ever published.  In 1751 he issued his “History of the Yellow Fever,” “which was the first that had been given to the public from the American continent.”  Dr. Lionel Chalmers (1715-1777), born in Argyllshire, practised in South Carolina for more than forty years, and was the first to treat of the soil, climate, weather, and diseases of that state.  He “left behind him the name of a skilful, humane physician.”  Dr. James Craik (1731-1814), physician-general of the United States Army, was born at Arbigland, near Dumfries, and for nearly forty years was the intimate friend of Washington, and his physician in his last illness.  One of the earliest introducers of vaccination into America and an original investigator into the cause of disease was Dr. John Crawford (1746-1813), of Ulster Scots birth.  As early as 1790 he had conceived what is now known as the germ theory of disease.  Dr. Adam Stephen, born in Scotland, died at Martinsburg, West Virginia, in 1791, took part in the French and Indian wars and was an active participant in the Revolutionary War on the side of the colonists.  The town of Martinsburg in Berkeley County was laid out by him.  Dr. George Buchanan (1763-1808), founder of the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland, was a grandson of George Buchanan, the Scot who laid out Baltimore town in 1730.  Dr. John Spence (1766-1829), born in Scotland, educated at Edinburgh University, settled in Virginia in 1791, and obtained a high reputation as a judicious and successful practitioner.  The “father of ovariotomy,” Dr. Ephraim McDowell (1771-1830), was born in Virginia of Scots ancestry and studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh.  James Brown McCaw (1772-1846), one of the leading surgeons in Virginia for over thirty years, studied medicine in Edinburgh.  He was one of the first, if not the first, to tie the external carotid artery, an operation he performed in 1807.  He came of a race of doctors, being the great-grandson of James McCaw, a surgeon who emigrated from Wigtownshire in 1771.  George McClellan (1796-1847) the eminent surgeon and founder of the Jefferson Medical College at Philadelphia, was of Scottish descent.  His son, John Hill Brinton