THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT

Essays in Reinterpretation

Edited by

Paul Wood

m UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER PRESS

a

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First published 2000by the University of Rochester Press

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hard cover: ISBN 1-58046-065-8

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The Scottish enlightenment: essays in reinterpretation I edited by Paul Wood.P: em. _ (Rochester studies in philosophy, ISSN 1529-188X; 1)

Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 1-58046-065-8 (alk. paper)1. Scotland-Intellectual life-18th century. 2. Enlightenment-

Scotland. I. Wood, Paul, 1952- II. Series.

DAB12.S39 2000941.107--dc21

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CHAPTER 5

"A SCOTSMAN ON THE MAKE": THE CAREER

OF ALEXANDER STUART

Anita Guerrini

There are few more impressive sights in the worldthan a Scotsman on the make.

-J. M. Barrie, What Every Woman Knows

As he lay dying in 1742, Alexander Stuart, M.D., wrote his will. Despite asuccessful career as a physician and a natural philosopher, Stuart emerges inthis document as a pathetic failure, crushed by a mountain of debt. His dyingplea to sell his scientific manuscripts in order to pay his debts only makesplain the depth of his delusion. Not only did his chosen editors refuse, afterhis death, to prepare the manuscripts for publication, but when his widowfinally managed to sell some of them she earned only a few shillings, whichdid not approach the extent of her husband's debts.The checkered career of Alexander Stuart (1673-1742) reveals both the

opportunities and the pitfalls that awaited a young "Scotsman on the make"in the medical world of early eighteenth-century Britain. He was one of anumber of Scottish medical men who made a significant intellectual and so-cial impact on English, and especially London, medicine, well before the found-ing of the Edinburgh Medical School in the 1720s. Yet Stuart's career alsodemonstrates how precarious was the foothold of young Scots in the south.Geoffrey Holmes and others have argued that in this period the English medi-cal profession was "opening", in the sense of becoming less hierarchical andrestrictive in its composition.' Scottish medical men, by their sheer numbersas well as by their intellectual attainments, played an important role in thatopening. But the process was neither smooth nor inevitable. While intellec-tual merit was admired, only patronage could lead to the goal of professionalsuccess.Stuart's failure to cultivate a sufficient amount of aristocratic patron-age led to his ultimate downfall. Despite his considerable intellectual attain-ments, Stuart well knew that professional advancement depended little onmerit.

IS8 THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT: ESSAYS IN REINTERPRETATION

This study of Stuart's career also contributes to the revision of the hisrori.ography of the Scottish Enlightenment to which Roger L. Emerson has con-tributed so signally. The intellectual and social circumstances of Stuart andother physicians support Emerson's contention that the Scottish Enlighten-ment had its beginnings in the Restoration, not in the Union, and that natu-ral philosophy played at least as important a role as moral philosophy in thedevelopment of Scottish thought. As Emerson has shown, the "sociability" socentral to the development of Enlightenment thought had its roots in naturalphilosophical circles that flourished from the 1680s onward.' In his quest forpatronage and recognition, Stuart tapped into intersecting circles of Scots,medical men, and natural philosophers in London. These circles, as well asthe interactions between Scots in England and their compatriots at home,have played little part in the historiography of the Scottish Enlightenment.Yet as the intellectual focus of Scotland gradually shifted from the Continentto the land south of the Tweed after the Union of 1707, these interactionsplayed an important role in both north and south.

Little is known of Stuart's early life. He was from the northeast of Scot-land, and he can probably be identified as the Alexander Stewart who was a"begian" in 1688 and a "magistrand" in 1691-92 at Marischal College, Aber-deen.' The Aberdeen curriculum included study of Descartes and Cartesianphysics as well as discussion of recent experiments such as those of RobertBoyle.' Aberdeen was a hotbed of jacobitism in this period, but Stuart neverrevealed his own political opinions. Like his countryman David Gregory, hequickly recognized that trimming was the way to gain patrons. Stuart's reli-gious beliefs are also not easily discerned. The norrheast of Scotland was astronghold of Episcopalianism, even after the 1689 settlement reestablishedthe Presbyterian Church as the Church of Scotland. In the absence of anymention of his religion once Stuart was in England, it is likely that he was anEpiscopalian, and indeed this may have provided some motivation for him tomove to England, as it did for several other Scots, including David Gregoryand George Cheyne.s One of Stuart's manuscript notebooks includes a shortlist of Christian books, including sermons by john Tillotson and EdwardStillingfleet, as well as john Scott's popular Christian Life (originally publishedin 1681, it reached a ninth edition in 1709) and the Huguenot jacquesAbbadie's equally popular The Art of Knowing One-Self (published in Frenchin 1692 and ttanslated into English in 1694). All of these works are Anglicanrather than Presbyterian in theological orientation, and could not in any way

be termed radical."Stuart initially turned to surgery as a profession. Surgery held a higher

status in Scotland than in England, and at least a few Scots surgeons hadstudied at university, including the anatomists Robert Elliot and, later,Alexander Monro primus. The physician Archibald Pitcairne was elected to

"A Scotsman on the Make": The Career of Alexander Stuart 159

the Incorporation of Surgeons in Edinburgh following his expulsion from theEdinburgh College of Physicians in 1695.1 Stuart's choice was therefore notunusual. It is not known where Stuart received his surgical training, since hedoes not appear on the lists of apprentices consulted by the Wallises in theirencyclopedic Eighteenth-Century Medics. As Roger L. Emerson has noted,however, there were many practicing in Scotland in this period whom hedefines as "skilled medics" who did not necessarily have formal training orlicenses. He points out that William Smellie, William Cullen, and WilliamHunter all practiced at ODe time wi thout licenses." Occasionally, applicantswere admitted to the Edinburgh Incorporation of Surgeons without havingserved as apprentices.' The earliest of Stuart's many notebooks of his medicalcases dates from 1698 and shows him already practicing as a surgeon-apoth-ecary, although it has been impossible to determine where. Rosalie Stott andHelen Dingwall have shown that the surgeon-apothecaries of Edinburgh fromat least the 1680s formed a well-organized group with high professional stan-dards.While surgeons and apothecaries maintained their distinctive occupa-donal groupings, most members of their joint incorporation were in fact jointlyqualified, with training in botany and pharmacy as well as in anatomy, sur-gery, and wound management. The surgeons had long claimed the right topractice pharmacy, and this right was confirmed by a patent of 1694. Thusthey closely approached the range of expertise required of general practitio-ners.'? In contrast, the separation between surgeons and apothecaries contin-ued in England at least until the 1730s."

Even though masters of the Edinburgh Incorporation of Surgeons limitedthe number of apprentices they took to one every three years, they nonethe-less produced a great overabundance of practitioners; as many as one hundredor more apprentices were training in Edinburgh at anyone time.'! When thisnumber was added to the number of provincial apprentices} oversupply re-suited. Scotland, with fewer than a million people, could not absorb suchnumbers, particularly during the economic crisis of the 1690s. The number oftowns in which aspiring surgeon-apothecaries could hope to duplicate the lifeof their masters was small; moreover, medical fees in Scotland were generallyfar below English charges." The combination of these factors led many Scot-tish medics to emigrate. The required five years of surgical apprenticeship wasusually followed by three years of "studie and travelling" before examinationasmasters. Many apprentices left Scotland at this time, most of them never toreturn. From the 1690s onward, the political and religious consequences ofthe 1689 settlement also served to motivate emigration.

It is unclear where Stuart stood in this process of apprenticeship and travel.Wherever he trained, his situation would have been much the same. He mayalready have been in England or Ireland in 1698. By 1701 he had followedthe path of many of his countrymen and had signed on as a surgeon on a

160 THE SCOTTISH ENLlGHTENMENT: ESSAYS IN REINTERPRETATION

merchant ship. Substantial numbers of young Scottish surgeons served onmerchant ships or entered the Royal Navy as ship's surgeons or surgeon's mates.In 1685, the Edinburgh surgeons claimed that their apprentices were "pre-ferred to any other of their trade" by his majesty's navy. A writer in 1739noted that Edinburgh had long enjoyed a

great Reputation for educating Youth in the Art of Surgery; the Army, the RoyalNavy, the Merchant Ships, our Colonies abroad, and many Places in Britain andIreland, are in a great Measure supplied with Gentlemen of that Employment

educated here."

The Incorporation of Surgeons in Edinburgh even took steps to ensure theircontinued reputation by requiring "rcsnfication" of apprentices before theywent abroad, although not all of them complied." On the English side, appli-cants for naval posts were examined in both surgery and materia medica by acommittee of the London Barber Surgeons' Company and the Physician toGreenwich Hospital." Unlike many of their English counterparts, Scots sur-geon~apothecaries were trained in both areas, and many found their way onto

ships.The state of virtually continuous war between l690 and 1714, as well as a

number of trading and colonial ventures, ensured a steady demand for medi-cal men. Stuart served on two merchant ships. He traveled on the London tothe Far East between 1701 and 1704, and rhen he almost immediately signedup for a voyage to the East Indies on the Europe, which lasred from 1704 to1707. Stuart's fortunes, like those of many young Scots surgeon-apothecaries,were somehow tied to Hans Sloane, physician, collector, secretary of the RoyalSociety, and indefatigable correspondent. Stuart corresponded with Sloanefrom the outset of his seafaring career. As he was about to set sail early in1702, Stuart thanked him for "your extraordinary kindnesses towards me onall occasions". These kindnesses included providing books, and in this letterStuart asked Sloane ro find one more, a copy of Lorenzo Bellini's opuscula(which Sloane sent)." This is an early indication of Stuart's strong interest iniatromechanism, for Bellini was a prominent figure in that area and muchadmired by the influential Scottish physician Archibald Pircairne. Later inthe voyage, Stuart again thanked Sloane for his "manyfold favours" and prom-ised to report on anything "remarkeable or curious"." It is likely that Sloanesponsored Stuart, as he sponsored many others, in his efforts to obtain a placeon a ship. In return, Stuart sent Sloane botanical specimens and reports ofunusual natural occurrences. Sloane published one of these, a description ofwaterspouts in the Mediterranean, in the Philosophical Transactions of the RoyalSociety (which he edited) in 1703. Stuart is identified as a "physiClan"19 Later,Sloane also published Stuart's description of a "pagan temple",20

"A Scotsman on the Make": The Career of Alexander Stuart 161

Stuart's was by no means an isolated case. Sloane was of Scottish ancestryand, having been born in Ireland, he knew full well the difficulties an out-sider could encounter in attaining a medical practice in England. In his owncase, the assistance of powerful patrons at an early stage in his career hadproven critical." The correspondence of Sloane and his surrogate, the apoth-ecary James Periver, with two successive curators of Edinburgh's botanic gar-den gives some context to Stuart's situation, illustrating the role of patronagefor him and other "Scotsmen on the make". James Sutherland served as cura-tor from 1676 until his retirement in 1705, and Charles Preston from 1705unril1711Y The curator was responsible for training surgical apprentices inmedical botany, an important aspect of pharmaceutical lore. Apprentices wererequited to attend lectures at the garden between mid-May and September 1at the rather inhospitable hours of 5 until 7 A.M. (full daylight in this north-ern latitude) ,13 Sutherland especially regarded the apprentices as his "schollars",and both he and Preston sent many young men to Sloane in London, recom-mending them to his "best advice"."

The role of Sloane as a patron and a collector is well known." His corre-spondence with the Edinburgh curators shows the interlocking nature of theseroles, for Sloane attained positions for the Scots apprentices on naval andrrading ships with the stipulation that they collect plants for him. As trainedbotanists, they were well equipped to do this, and Sutherland specifically rec-ommended them for this purpose." In June 1701, for example, Sutherlandintroduced the bearer of his letter, David Lindsay, who "has served his ap-prenticeship to a Chirurgeon-Apothecary here and has been some time aScholar at the Physick Garden, he goes to London to await ane Occasion ofgoing Surgeons Mate in some good Ship". Sutherland asked Sloane to teachLindsay how to collect for him, and then to find him a place on a ship." Inanother letter, Sutherland outlined the course of a surgeon-apothecary's career:

All the Surgeons and Apothecaries apprentices in this place are usually mySchollars at the Physick Garden and after they have served in a Shop five yearsthey seek Occasions of going Surgeons in Ships to the East or West Indies, orany other forram place that offers, and so spend their time abroad for the spaceof six or seven years before they retum and set up a shop of their own."

Some of these men remained at sea or in the colonies: "Mr Cold in" , whomPreston recommended in 1708, passed a winter in London studying surgeryand then left for America; he later became governor of the New York colony."But for those who returned, their "shop" would most likely be in Englandrather than Scotland. Service in the armed forces meant that a surgeon couldafterwardspractice his trade freely, even in guild towns, without reference toEnglish licensing requiremenra." He would, moreover, be more likely to settle

162 THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT: EsSAYS IN REINTERPRETATION

in the English provinces than in London. By the 1680s, notes Peter Earle, "itwas increasingly difficult for journeymen to become masters" in London be-cause of the increasing expense of setting up business there."

Some Scottish surgeons had higher aspirations and went on to get medicaldegrees. Patrick Blair, for example, began his career as a surgeon-apothecaryin Dundee. He came to Sloane's notice in 1710 when he sent an account tothe Philosophical Transactions of an elephant he had dissected. Blair was namedF.R.S., received an MD. from Aberdeen in 1712, and moved to England. Anoted botanist, he made full use of Sloane's patronage. In 1710, he sought"sea service" or a post in Jamaica for his nephew and apprentice WilliamChristy, and when Blair was jailed as a Jacobite in 1715, he called on Sloaneto gain his release.F Yet success was not easily attained, and Blair spent sev~eral years after his release from Newgate in attempting to reestablish a prac-tice. In 1719 he asked Sloane for a loan to help him set up a practice inNewcastle." It is not known whether Sloane provided funds, but Blair even-tually set up shop in Boston, Lincolnshire, a placid provincial backwater.

Upon the conclusion of his second voyage, Stuart seems to have been arloose ends. The detailed journals he kept during his voyages demonstrate hisfine observational sense and his voracious hunger for knowledge. He tooknotes of the weather and of books he had read, described chemical experi-ments he performed, and wrote long and detailed accounts of the cases heencountered. These notes could serve as references for his own future prac-tice. The kinds of learning to which Stuart aspired were the domain of thephysician rather than the surgeon, and clearly, he looked toward becoming aphysician. Increasingly, he wrote his case notes in Latin rather than English,and took careful note of the remedies employed by popular physicians. Whileat sea in 1707, he wrote a lengthy treatise on the ideal physician, concludingwith specific instructions for himself:

So mat I woud endeavour by all possible means to gett the Quack's Catalogue ofspecifique simples & the physician's catalogue of original simple causes whichwith Gods great & tnvalueable Gift the Light of Reason joined with diligent &carefull observation & seconded by Gods favour & blesseing is a sufficient stockto sett up a good physician."

"Specific simples't-i-single cures for single diseases-were indeed consideredquackish in the context of contemporary medical theory, which asserted thatevery constitution, and therefore every manifestation of disease, was unique."Original simple causes", on the other hand, referred to the physician's learnedprovince of determining causes, not merely naming symptoms. In combiningthese, Stuart followed mechanists such as his compatriots William Cockburnand George Cheyne, both of whom had studied with the iatrornechanist

"A Scotsman on the Make": The Career of Alexander Stuart 163

Archibald Pitcairne. Stuart frequently cited all three of them in his notes.Cockburn's notorious "electuary" for dysentery presumed that this commonsailors' affliction was the same in every case. Cheyne's works on fevers, pub-lished in the early years of the century, asserted that the proper application ofnatural philosophy to disease theory would result in a reduction of the recog-nized causes of disease to a few simple ones. The combination of specific simpleswith specific causes, therefore, was a recognizably "modern" program thatwould, it would seem, ensure success in the crowded medical marketplace.Stuart's notebooks record his travel from London, where he landed in 1707,

to Galway in Ireland, where he practiced as a surgeon for a time in 1708. Hesoon returned to London, however, and continued his medical practice. Whilehe described several cases that were apparently his OWO, there is no record ofhis being licensed in any way. Many of his patients were seafaring men, suchas "Charles Douglas of the ship Stringer Gaily" whose case he described atlength in April 1709. Like Douglas, many of his patients bore Scottish sur-names, including Thomas Stuart, his former mate on the Euroj)e.35Stuart's notebooks, displaying his strenuous efforts at self-education, are

filled with tidbits of advice from other physicians, from books, hearsay, orconversation. In January 1709, he consulted Sir David Hamilton, a royal phy-sician, about rheumatism and gout. Hamilton (1663-1721) was in many waysa model of the Scots medical migrant. He had received his medical degreefrom the University of Rheims in France, a well-known diploma mill for for-eigners. He traveled to London in [686 and took the examination for thelicense of the Royal College of Physicians. His specialty was "women's dis-eases", and especially midwifery, at a period when the upper classes were in-creasingly turning to physicians rather than (or along with) midwives for ob-stetrical care. Hamilton enjoyed great success and later became Queen Anne'sphysician and confidante. She knighted him in 1703. Stuart describedHamilton with great admiration as "candidisslrnus & sagax Dno Domino [mostcandid and wise lord master]"." Stuart and Hamilton also shared interests inthe defense of Christianity against the many threats to it in this period, forHamilton was the author of two works On this topic, including the PrivateChristian's Witness w Christianity (l697).Stuart also participated in dissections with another Scot, the anatomist

James Douglas, and in July 1709 he recorded a recipe for "condirnenrumchinense soya dictum" reported by another Douglas, Charles." The fact thatmost of his associates and patients were Scots confirms the widespread im-pression among both contemporaries and historians of the strong ties amongScots abroad. James Douglas often took on Scots as apprentices. Stuart ar-rived in London with a circle of colleagues and potential patients alreadyestablished in the community of Scots. Swift commented of his physician,William Cockburn, "I dined today with Dr Cockburn, but will not do so again

164 THE SCOTITSH ENLLGHTENMENT: EsSAYSIN REINTERPRETATION

in haste, he has generally such a parcel of Scots with him"]' These circles offriendship and common interests served as an antidote to the political andreligious divisions of Scotland itself. In addition, Scots provided mutual assis-tance to their countrymen in the sometimes hostile atmosphere of London.The Union of Parliaments in 1707 seems to have had little impact on theserelationships or on the migration of Scots surgeons and physicians to En-gland. But the Union did increase the number of upper-class Scots-and there-fore the patient population-regularly resident in London.

By the end of 1709, Stuart had made the most important decision of hislife. On 14 December 1709, aged thirty-six, he enrolled as a medical studentat the University of Leiden. Hamilton and Sloane sponsored him and loanedhim money for his fees." Why did these two prominent physicians decide tosponsor this unknown Scotsman?The answer remains unknown, but to Sloaneat least, Stuart proved to be a useful and energetic overseas agent. He sentnews of the European war, described his studies with Herman Boerhaave, de-livered copies of the Philosophical Transactions to Anthony van Leeuwenhoek,and kept Sloane informed of significant events such as the impending sale ofsome of the famous anatomical models of Frederik Ruvsch." In his notebooks,Stuart detailed Ruysch's injection techniques, probably with a view to dem-onstrating them on his return." Perhaps in repayment of Sloane's loan, Stuartsent Sloane lias a gift" a "Black Boy" as a servant. However, the boy proved tobe a "rogue"and Stuart urged Sloane to "dispose" of him to the West Indies."

Even before he obtained his degree in June 1711, Stuart was on the look-out for any opportunity. A few months after his arrival in Leiden, he askedSloane "to make mention of me to any young Gentleman who intends totravel in these parts"! assuming that the rumors of impending peace wereindeed true." The rumors were unfounded, and in the summer of 1710 Stuartplanned instead to "see the Army Hospital Practice" on the battlefront inFlanders."

Stuart's notebook from 1709 to 1710 is crammed with notes on remedies,techniques, and experiments as he prepared for his future career as a learnedphysician. He spent much of his time in Leiden perfecting his experimentalskills, including dissection, injection! and chemistry. His later publicationsdemonstrate impressive skills in anatomy, and he leamed Ruysch's injectiontechniques from conversation with "Dr Nicholson Hibernus" and two Scots!Me. Lundy and Me. Stevenson, indicating once more the close ties amongScots abroad'S The model of vascular hydraulics developed by Pitcairne andCheyne also made injection an especially important technique.

Stuart took his degree at Leiden in June 1711, with a thesis on muscularmotion! which he dedicated to Sloane and Hamilton, and to two command;ers of the Scots Brigade in Flanders, Colonel George Lauder and Sir WalterColyear, He wrote to Sloane:

"A Scotsman on the Make": The Career of A1exanJer Stuart r65

My theses are de structura & motu musculari, as I wror you formerly, wherein Ihave shown the structure (rom Anatomy & microscopical discoveries, & en-deavoured to demonstrar the motion Mechanically, without the help of Fer-mentation &c in a manner, for ought I know, intirely new, I wish it was aequallvtrue. However it has had the good luck to be aproven of by some considerablmen here, tho different from what has been taught on that subject in theUniversity.f

In the preface to his thesis, Stuart charted out a career as a researcher, ambi-tiously promising to extend his theories to other parts of the "animaloeconomy". Stuart's theories adhered closely to the mechanical, hydraulictheories established by Pircaime and reinforced by Boerhaave's teaching. Ashis letter to Sloane indicated, he rejected chemical explanations of muscularmotion based on the idea of a "ferment" in the muscles in favor of the directaction of the nervous fluid, whose pressure on the blood vessels caused moreor less blood to flow into the muscles.A reputation as a man of science could be valuable in setting up a medical

practice; in this, Stuart had the example of a number of Newtonian physi-cians, including Cheyne, Richard Mead, and John Freind. Yet Stuart couldnot neglect the practical side of establishing a practice. He covered as manybases as possible, sending several copies of his thesis, including one inscribedto Newton, back to Sloane via Petiver (who had gone to Leiden in July j 711to buy the museum of Paulus Herman for Sloane). At the same time, he soughta position in an army hospital on the battlefront in Flanders." Stuart remainedin Flanders for about six months, making a "tollerably handsorn Livelyhood",but more importantly, gathering recommendations from "some considerablpersons" he had cured. These would, he hoped, attract the attention ofMarlborough, and even if the war ended, such recommendations could alsohelp hem get a position as a nobleman's physician abroad."

But by the end of j 711, he was back in London, where he treated patientsmuch as he had done in j 709. He rented rooms from an apothecary namedMitchell on Pall Mall, where he lived until his marriage in j 72649 He took uphis notebooks where he had left off in Leiden, although with a few differencesthat reflected his higher status. Now he wrote his notes exclusively in Latin,and he made an attempt at organization, drawing up columns in which helisted symptoms, medicines, and effects. Later in 171 2 and again in 1713 healso drew up a chart correlating weather and illnesses, and wrote long anddetailed case histories, possibly with an eye toward publication.v If published,these case histories could provide evidence of his expertise to potential pa-tients. But he had the time to draw up these charts and cases because as yet hehad very few patients. His case book for 1712-13 includes his account book for1713, listing a total of seventy-six patients and a total income of £109 Is. 6d.Although he had a few noble patients, such as Lady Powis and Lady Galloway,

- ---

166 THE SCOTIlSH ENLIGHTENMENT: EsSAYS IN REINTERPRETATION

most of his patients were of the status of "Lord Stairs cook". They includedmany military and ex-military men, often with Scottish surnames, includingCaptain Hamilton, whose fees of £10 ISs. for treatment for gonorrhea werethe highest paid. Many more fees were ill the range of five shillings."Stuart progressed slowly. By 1715, his accounts show a yearly total of nearly

£184, from 110 cases. The status of his patients slowly rose. At the end of1715, "Lady Ann Ritch" gave him a gift of ten guineas to thank him for hiscare of her, and the following spring she proceeded to Bath, with Stuart'sinstructions posted to her physician there." At the end of 1714, he had beenelected to the Royal Society, but the increasing demands of his practice madeit difficult ro pursue research; little evidence of it appears in his notebooksduring this period and he did not publish anything until 1730. However, thepursuit of natural phi losophy was an important component of his persona as alearned physician and he did not abandon it entirely. He recommenced re-search at the height of his career in the late 1720s, taking up where he left offin 1711.53

In 1719, Stuart's reputation as a practitioner was well established, and inthat year he was elected first practicing physician to the new WestminsterHospital. This highly visible and prestigious-but unpaid-position includedboth treating patients and administering the hospital, and Stuart found hehad a great talent for organization. He also relished the variety of cases, whichhe continued to record assiduously in his notebooks." Now nearly fifty, Stuarthad finally attained some of the success he sought. In June 1720, he took theexamination for the license of the Royal College of Physicians of London,and he was soon admitted as a licentiate. He had left behind the poor surgeonscrambling for patients and was now a respected member of the medical es-tablishment. A hospital physician was indeed considered to be at the peak ofthe medical establishment, and the presence of wealthy patrons on thehospital's governing board implied access to a desirable patient population.Stuart's accounts for 1724 show a comfortable, but not princely, annual in-come of about £750 from his private practice. But, as William Bynum notes,"British hospital physicians and surgeons almost always had at least one eyeon their private consulting rooms, for it was here that the wealth that spelledprofessional success was to be had"." Here Stuart's eye seems to have wan-dered, because as far as his records indicate, his income never increased ap-preciably from this point onward. One must wonder whether the demands ofhis hospiral position kept him from earning more. In addition, most of hisincome came from fees of a guinea or less, and he seldom attended thosenoble patients who could keep a doctor for months. He was not on the levelof Richard Mead, who made thousands of pounds a year from his medicalpractice. The increased status of being a hospital physician meant that Stuart'sexpenses also rose: in 1724, for example, he spent about £3 per month in

"A Scotsman on the Make": The Career of Alexander StULlrt 167

hiring chairs and coaches to take him around London." Book subscriptionsand the proper clothes would also place a burden on his resources.

In 1720, Stuart followed the path of many of his upper-class patients andinvested in South Sea stock. His patron Sir David Hamilton invested heavily,and perhaps influenced by him, Stuart borrowed money to invest. Even thenormally prudent Sir Isaac Newton was caught up in the South Sea frenzyand invested a considerable sum. The stock stood at £1,000 for a £100 invest-ment in July 1720, but by October it had plunged to £290 and continued todecline. Hamilton was rumored to have lost as much as £80,000---an enor-mous sum, equivalent to millions of pounds today-and Newton lost almost£20,000.57 Stuart lost all he had invested, and unlike Hamilton or Newton hedid not have sufficient wealth to bounce back. Despite continuing a success-fulmedical career, Stuart was financially ruined. While he probably paid backsome of his creditors, and he regularly paid interest to the others, at the timeof his death over two decades later he still owed £2,000. The extent of hisindebtedness may be indicated by the continued debt to Mitchell the apoth-ecary for the rent of his lodgings; in 1742 he still owed the full amount of£300 for the years 1712 to 1726, which, said Stuart in his will, "the greatburthen of South Sea debt hindred me to discharge"."

Ironically, Stuart was about to enter the most productive phase of his life.In the mid-1720s, he began to inoculate some of his patients against small-pox. He may have learned of inoculation from Sloane, who promoted it av-idly,or possibly from Aberdeen surgeon Charles Maitland, who inoculatedmany under Sloane's sponsorship. In his notebooks, Stuart carefully recordedeach patient's response and the physical appearance of the inoculation site."A few years before, his old friend and fellow Scot William Douglass (J691 1-1752),who had been at Leiden with him, addressed to him two anti-inocula-tion pamphlets. Douglass had gone on to receive an M.D. from Utrecht andhad emigrated to Boston in North America in 1718.60 Douglass wrote the firstof his pamphlets at the end of 1721. The efficacy of inoculation, he said, wasunproven; he compared it to blood transfusion, which had also been discussedin the Philosophical Transactions but was not therefore medically proven. Healsoobjected to inoculation advocate Cotton Mather's lack of medical train-ing, a point he made more strongly in the second pamphlet, The Abuses andScandals of Some Late Pamphlets in Favour of Inoculation of the Small Pox, inwhich he stated as one of his goals "to maintain the Practitioners [that is,physicians] in their Rights and Priviledges". Douglass did not object to trials ofinoculations, such as those instigated by Sloane and performed by Maitlandon prisoners at Newgate in 1720. Stuart certainly knew of these trials, eitherfrom Sloane or from Maitland. Indeed, Douglass asked Stuart to report ontheir Successin London. Douglass wrote the pamphlets anonymously and ad-dressedStuart only as "A.-S.-M.D. & FR.5.", but few were fooled by this

168 THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT: EsSAYSIN REINTERPRETATION

ruse, and the identities of both Stuart and Douglass were very soon revealedin print by another opponent of inoculation, the physician and satirist Will-

iam Wagstaffe.61Stuart's practice and reputation continued to grow in the 1720s, as did

Westminster Hospital. In 1728, he was named one of Queen Caroline's phy-sicians-in-ordinary. Although this position made Stuart part of the royal house-hold, it is not clear what remuneration was attached to it.

62 In rapid succes-sion he was then granted a Cambridge M.D. (comitiis Tegiae) and elected afellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London. In 1726, he married andleft his apothecary's lodgings in Pall Mall for fashionable Bloomsbury, theneighborhood of Sloane and Mead. Yet his debts still hung ovet his head; ayear after his marriage he made over all his assets, except for his manuscripts,to his wife in an effort to protect her from the consequences of his debts. Forall of his success as a practitioner, Stuart seems to have been a remarkablypoor manager of his own funds. In h is will, he notes one creditor to whom heprovided free medical care for tWOdecades, but with no corresponding reduc-

tion In his debt.Stuart retained his scientific manuscripts with the idea of publishing them

to relieve his debts. But in the crowded matketplaces of mediclne and bookpublishing, he found this to be mote difficult than he envisaged. The usualmethod of publishing such speciallzed works as scientific rreatises was by sub-scription, which covered the costs of publication and also guatanteed that acertain number of copies would be sold. Stuart hlmselfhad subsctibed to sev-eral publlcations; in 1728, for example, he was listed as a subscriber to HenryPemberton's A View of Sir Isaac Newton's Natural Philosophy and to the firstedition of Chambers's Cyclopedia. Subscribing to these works kept Stuart'sown name before his desired publlc.63 Whlle both of these works enjoyedconsiderable popularity, Stuart's own Latln medical treatises had a much smallerpotential audience. Competition with similar works for subscribers was there'fore fierce. A writer in The Weekly ]ounlaL in 1725 complained that "the Publickhave been wearied out with repeated Subscriptions", while the "Man of Ge-nius" starves" George Cheyne had publlshed his Latin treatise De naturafibrae in 1725 without subscription, but he was by then a best-selling authorwhose 1724 Essay of Health and Long Life had already reached its seventh

edition.In the late 1720s and early 1730s, Stuart was deeply engaged both in hismedical practice and in research. He published several articles in the Philo-sophicaL Transactions in the 1730s, most of them based on cases he had ob-served. He translated the bare facts of the cases, in Susan Lawrence's apt de-scription, "into a mechanical physician's learned interpretation of symptomsand anatomical relationships within a hydraulic animal economy".65 These

"A Scotsman on the Make"; The Career of Alexaruler Stuart 169

articles therefote demonstrated Stuart's expertise both as a physician and as anatural philosopher, and indeed to him these identities were not separate. His1730 account of the purpose of bile, for example, gave a case history of apatient who had a wound in his gall bladder, a detailed account of the subse-quent autopsy, and an extended discussion of the causes of the symptoms thatthe patient had experienced. This discussion of causes combined anatomicaland mechanical description and included accounts of other experiments, end,ing with a recommendation for further experimentation. Stuart's theoreticalstance continued to be resolutely mechanical and he explicitly rejected chemi-

cal explanations.66

In 1733 he continued his discussion of bile in a lengthy article in the Philo-sophical Transactions in which he detailed his theories of nervous function. Ina short article the previous year, he had made it clear that he supported thedoctrine of the hollow nerve against its recent critics, who included Newtonand Cheyne.61 In the earlier article he described his famous "spinal frog" ex-periment, in which he pushed a probe against the spinal cord of a decapitatedfrog, causing its legs to twitch. This proved, said Stuart, that the musclesmoved because nervous fluid was squeezed out of the spinal cord into themuscles by the pressure of the probe. He further showed that while veins andarteries were highly elastic, nervous fibers were not, and were therefore hardlycapable of vibrating as some theories (though not Newton's) required.

Stuart's 1733 article continued this discussion of nervous function, describ-ing several new experiments he had performed. He determined that the nerveitself was insensitive, an observation also made by Haller many years later.Much of the article discussed the phenomenon of sleepiness after eating, whichhe attributed to a lack of animal spirits or nervous fluid in the blood. A heavymeal, he explained, pressed on the digestive system and caused a sudden in-flux of chyle into the blood, which absorbed the animal spirits and thereforecaused sleepiness. Again, he did not allow chemical causes, deeming mechani-cal effects alone to be sufficient."

Also in l733, Stuart led the secession of the medical staff from WestminsterHospital over a dispute concerning a new site. He and most of the Westminsterstaff joined together to found St. George's Hospital, which was, like theWestminster, a voluntary foundation dependent on subscriptions and dona-tions. Stuart remained at St. George's until 1736. While this move was pro-fessionally satisfying, it had no positive impact on his financial status andindeed may have worsened it, since his new duties undoubtedly diminishedthe number of paying patients he could see. His renewed experimental pur-suits must also have had the effect of decreasing his time for patients.

Stuart continued to believe he could somehow pay his debts by publishingscientific works. In 1735 he joined a group of learned gentlemen to found the

[70 THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT: EsSAYSIN RElNTERPRETATION

Society for the Encouragement of Learning to help publish learned works.Using income from an initial subscription of ten guineas and annual dues oftwo guineas, the society would sponsor the publication of works that mostbooksellers (who were also publishers) would have declared unlikely to earn aprofit. More importantly, after publication expenses were paid, the authorrather rhan the publisher, would retain the profits." 'Christine Gerrard has noted that the original membership of the society

"seems to have had a distinctively oppositional cast" since many memberswere also part of the anti-Walpole "patriot" movement, although a few, suchas Richard Mead, were not." Members also included many Scots apart fromStuart, most notably the medic James Douglas and the antiquarian andAberdonian Alexander Gordon, who was elected secretary." The society pub-lished several works by Scots; authors included the St. Andrews professorArchibald Campbell and the Marischal mathematician John Stewart. Stuart'srole in the publication of their works is unclear, but Campbell's work, a de-fense of revealed religion, was on a topic close to Stuart's heart, and he metJohn Stewart, along with Thomas Reid, in London in 1736-3772Samuel Richardson, Cheyne's printer, printed many of the works published

by the society. Among these was Stuart's revision of his 1711 Leiden disserta-tion, titled Dissertario de strucrura etmotu musculari. Five hundred copies at 4s.per copy were published in 1738, and by the following year the book had soldenough to cover the society's expenses. This was, indeed, one of the few suc-cess stories of the sociery."In Bordeaux in 1737, Stuart had already published a version of his disserta-

tion, which won a prize from that city's academy. Encouraged by this success,Stuart turned increasingly toward research. In 1738 he was invited ro givethe Croonian lectures on muscular motion at the Royal Society, and he wasCroonian lecturer again in 1740 and 1741. The Royal Society awarded himits Copley Medal in 1740 in recognition of his research accomplishments.Stuart's works were not explicitly anti-Newtonian, since he continued to sup-port the older Newtonian views of Pitcairne and James Keill, which includeddiscussion of short-range forces on the small particles of the blood and otherbodily fluids. But his continued support of mechanical explanations, amidthe increasing popularity of Newtonian ethers, and his recognition by theRoyal Society bear notice. Sloane was the president of the Royal Societyduring these years, but it isnot clear that he especially favored Stuart. Cheyne,Mead, and other early acolytes of Pitcairne had accepted etherial explana-tions, but Stuart had nor." During this period, Stuart also delivered severalpapers to the Royal Society on muscular motion, electricity, and the structureof the heart; a short account of the latter was published in the PhilosophicalTransacrions in 1741. These were the papers that, in his will, he hoped couldbe published by subscription to redeem his debts."

"A Scotsman on the Make": The Career of Alexander StUflrt '71

But the intersecting networks of physicians, Scots, and natural philoso.phers upon whom Stuart had depended fell apart at his death. He named ashis executors Henry Baker, a fellow of the Royal Society and writer on themicroscope, and Hugh Fraser, chaplain to St. George's Hospital. He assignedBaker the task of preparing his manuscripts for publication, with the assis-tance of Richard Mead, Cromwell Mortimer (who had succeeded Sloane assecretary of the Royal Society), James Parsons (a physician and ERS), DavidRoss (an Aberdonian and physician at St. George's), and John Ward (E R.S.,professor of rhetoric ar Gresham College, and a member of the Society for theEncouragement of Learning).76 Baker had encouraged Stuart in his scheme,but after Stuart's death Baker refused to carry it out, and both he and Fraserrefused to act as executors. Stuart's widow assumed responsibility for his ef-fects. The subscription scheme was abandoned, and Susannah Stuart disposedof her husband's papers, including his notebooks, at a sale a year later, wherethey ferched very small sums; his notebooks sold for 4s. or 5s. apiece. It fell toyet another Scot, the surgeon and anatomist William Hunter, to rescue Stuart'spapers from oblivion. Hunter had been a protege of James Douglas and mayhave met Stuart. He eventually bought the majority of Stuart's manuscripts,and they found their way back to Scotland with Hunter's papers."

Stuart's career demonstrates the ambiguity of many of the supposed dichoto-mies of this period: natural philosophy versus profit, theory versus practice, sue-cess versus penury. Stuart had built his career on the Enlightenment principles ofsociability and natural philosophy, but ultimately both failed him. He pursuedenlightened natural philosophy in part with a view toward making a profit, bothas a medical practitioner and later as an author, To him, medical theory andmedical practice were deeply intertwined, and it is perhaps only our view of theinadequacies of mechanical theory that make the two seem incompatible. Stuartwas, to all appearances, a great Success in his career: yet his immense indebted-ness reveals the continuing precariousness of the career of this Scotsman on the make.

Notes

Research for this essay was supported in part by grants from the Interdisciplinary Hu-manities Center and the Academic Senate of the University of California, Santa Bar-bara, and by a fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities atthe University of Ed inburgh. For permission to quote from manuscripts held by GlasgowUniversity Library, I am grateful to the university librarian. Many thanks to: the staffof Special Collections, Glasgow University Library; Paul Wood; Helen Brock for shar-ing with me her knowledge of Stuart; John Dussinger for conversations about theSOCietyfor the Encouragement of Learning; and Michael Osborne.

172 THE SCOTfISH ENLIGHTENMENT: ESSAYSIN REINTERPRETATION

1. Geoffrey Holmes, Augustan England: Professions, State, and Society (London:Allen and Unwin, 1982), 176-78.

2. Roger L Emerson, "Sir Robert Stbbald, Kt, the Royal Society of Scotland, andthe Origins ofthe Scottish Enlightenment", Anncis of Science 45 (1988), 41-72; idem"Science and the Origins and Concerns of the Scottish Enlightenment", History ofScience 26 (1988), 333-66; idem, "Science and Moral Philosophy in the Scottish En-lightenment", in Studies in the Philosophy of the Scottish Enlightenment, ed. M. A. Stewart(Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1990), 11-36; idem, "Scottish Cu Itural Change, 1660-1710,and the Union of 1707", in A Union for Empire: Political Thought and the British Unionof 1707, ed. John Robertson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 121-44.

3. P. J. Anderson, ed., Fasti Academiae Mariscallanae, 1593-1860,3 vols. (Aber-deen: New Spalding Club, 1889-98),2:262. Stuart is listed as M.A. Aberdeen 1691 inR. W. Innes Smith, English-Speaking Swdents of Medicine at the University of Leyden(Edinburgh and London, Oliver and Boyd, 1932), 226.

4. Christine King Shepherd, "The Arts Curriculum at Aberdeen at the Beginningof the Eighteenth Century", in Aberdeen and the Enlightenment, eds. Jennifer J. Carterand Joan H. Pittock (Aberdeen: University of Aberdeen Press, 1987), 149-51.

5. Paul B. Wood, "Aberdeen and Europe in the Enlightenment", in The Universi-ties of Aberdeen and Europe: The First Three Centuries, ed. Paul Dukes (Aberdeen' Ab-erdeen University Press, 1995),119-20; Anita Guerrini, "The Tory Newtcnians: Gre-gory, Pitcaime, and Their Circle", Journal of British Studies 25 (1986): 288-311.

6. Alexander Stuart, "Liber Ocravus.Observationes medico-chirurgicae. Auspicante& favenre misericorde Deo. AbAlexander Sruarto Inchoatus. Mensis Maii 24to 1707",Glasgow University Library (GUL), MS Hunter 225, fo!' 173.

7. Helen Dingwall, Physicians, Surgeons, and Apothecaries: Medicine in Secenreenth-Century Edinburgh (East Linton, Scotland: Tuckwell Press, 1995), chap. 2.

8. Roger Emerson, "Numbering the Medics: The Expansion of the Medical Pro-fession in Eighteenth-Century Scotland", typescript, 1993.

9. Dingwall, Physicians, Surgeons, and Apothecaries, 89.10.Rosalie Stott, "The Incorporation of Surgeons and Medical Education and Prac-

tice in Edinburgh, 1696-1755" (Ph.D. diss., Universiry of Edinburgh, 1984),90-91;Dingwall, Physicians, Surgeons, and Apothecaries, 187-88, and chap. 2, passim.

11. Joseph Ken, "Provincial Medical Practice in England, 1730-1815", Journal ofthe History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 29 (1964): 17-18.

12. Stott, "Incorporation of Surgeons", 17-18, 102.13. On fees, see Irvine Loudon, Medical Care and the General Practitioner, /750-

1850 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 112-113, where he notes that "Scotland ...was notorious for the poverty of medical practice".

14. Quoted by Stott, "Incorporation of Surgeons", 102j A Letter from A Gentlemanin Town, To his Friend in the Country; Relating to the Royal Infirmary Of Edinburgh(Edinburgh: n. p., 1739),3 (also cited by Stott, xxix}; the writer went on to note thatabout two hundred apprentices currently were in training.

15. Stott, "Incorporation of Surgeons", 102, where she notes that such cerrifjca~tion began in 1679. However, in 1696 it was noted in the minutes that "severall young

"A Scotsman on the Make"; The Career of Alexander Stuart 173

men are gone abroad in a disorderly and clandestine way without rrvall of the time ofrheir service"; Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh, Record Book, 1695-1708, fol.32, dated 24 May 1696.

16. Holmes, Augustan England, 202-3.17.Alexander Stuart to Hans Sloane, 16February 1701/2, British Library (BL), Sloane

MS 4038, fol. 305. Bellini (1643-1707) was a well-known iatromechanist. Stuart toldSloane that a "Mr Stuart chvmisr", possibly a relative, would pay him for the book.

18.Alexander Stuart to Sloane, 24 July 1702, BL Sloane MS 4039, fol. 11.19. Alexander Stuart, "Part of a Letter from Mr Alex. Stuart (a Physician) to the

publisher, concerning some Spouts he observed in the Mediterranean", PhilosophicalTransactions 23 (1702-3); 1077-82.20. Alexander Stuart, "Explanation of the Figures of a Pagan Temple, and Some

Unknown Characters at Cannara in Salset'', Philosophical Transactions 26 (1709); 372.21. On Sloane's early career, I have relied upon the research of my graduate S[U~

denr.jrll Meekins, who is completing a dissertation on Sloane's early medical practice.22. This correspondence is among the Sloane MSS at the British Library; photo-

copies of many of the letters also exist in the library of the Royal Botanical Garden,Edinburgh, and were excerpted in John Macqueen Cowan, "The History of the RoyalBotanical Garden, Edinburgh", Notes from the Royal Botanical Garden, Edinburgh 19(1933); 36-49; idem, "The History of the Royal Botanical Garden, Edinburgh-thePresrons", Notes from rhe Royal Botanical Garden, Edinburgh 19 (1935); 63-134. 1 amgrateful to Roger L. Emerson for initially directing me to these letters.

23. RoyalCollege of Surgeons, Edinburgh, Minute Book, 1708-1737, fol. 119 (May1712). Storr notes hours of 4 till 7 A.M. but says these were "not intrusive" into anapprentice's daily schedule: Stott, "Incorporation of Surgeons", 90-92.

24. James Sutherland to Sloane, 24 June 1701, BL Sloane MS 4063, fol. 101.25. TIle standard studies of Sloane are G. R. de Beer, Sir Hans Sloane and the British

Museum (London; Oxford University Press, 1953); E. St.john Brooks, Sir Hans Sloane;The Great Collector and His Circle (London; Barchworth Press, 1954); ArthurMacGregor, ed., Sir Hans Sloane: Collector, Scientist, Antiquary, Founding Father of theBritish Museum (London: British Museum Press, 1994). See also Maarten Ultee, "TheRepublic of Letters: Learned Correspondence, 1680-1720", Seventeenth Century 2(1987); 95-112.

26. Sutherland to Sloane, 24 June 1700, BLSloane MS 4063, fol. 32.27. Sutherland to Sloane, 24 June 1701, BL Sloane MS 4063, fol. IOJ. Sloane

would not have trained these men personally, but probably assigned them to someoneelse, perhaps James Petiver; although Preston regularly introduced his students to bothSloane and Petiver.

28. Sutherland to Sloane, 25 March 1700, BLSloane MS 4063, fo!' 9. This letter isalso cited in Joan R. Bunerton, "The Education, Naval Service, and Early Career ofWilliam Smellie", Bulletin of the History of Medicine 60 (1986); 7.

29. Preston to Sloane, 24 September 1708, BL Sloane MS 4041, fol. 210.Cadwallader Colden (1688-l776) also wrote several scientific treatises: see Dictionaryof Amencan Biography, s.v. "Colden, Cadwallader".

30. Holmes,Augustan England, 197-98; LloydG. Stevenson, "A Note on the Relation

174 THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT: ESSAYS IN REINTERPRETATION

of Military Service to Licensing in the History of British Surgery", Bulletin of the His-tory of Medicine 27 (1953),420-27.

31. Peter Earle, The Making of the English Middle Class (London' Methuen, 1989),

26-27.32. Blair to Sloane, 23 February 1710, BL Sloane MS 4042, fcl. 103r; Dictionary of

National Biography, s.v. "Blair, Patrick". I have written the New DNB article on Blairto appear in 2004. An Aberdeen M.D. was conferred on the basis of recommendations

and the payment of a fee.33. Blair to Sloane, 22 May 1719 and 2 June 1719, BL Sloane MS 4045, fols. 207

21~2 '34. Stuart, "Liber Octavus/Observationes medico~chirurgicae", GUL MS Hunter

225, fol. 80.35. Alexander Stuart, "Observationum medico~chyrurgicarum Lib. 9 .. 26 Aprilis

1709", GUL MS Hunter 530, unfoliated.36. Alexander Stuart, Casebook, 1708-9 and 1716, GUL MS Hunter 537,

unfoliated; on Hamilton, see Philip Roberts, introduction to The Diary of David Hamilton1709-17/4, ed. Philip Roberts (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1975); Dictionary of Na-tional Biography, s.v. "Hamilton, David". Hamilton enrolled at the University of Lei den

in 1683 but his career there is unknown.37. GUL MS Hunter 537, 23 April 1709; Alexander Stuart, "Londini & Lugd.

Batav. 1709 & 17LO/ Secretiorum quorundam medicamentorum ab Alexandra Stuartod iv ina virtu tis efficacissimam opem & concurrentiam ser io implorante Icom[m]unicatorum & expertorum collectus fasciculus", GUL MS Hunter 529, fcl. 28,18 July 1709.

38. Jonathan Swift to Stella, 16 January 1710/11, Jonathan Swift, Journal to Stella,ed. Harold Williams (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1948), 171.

39. Stuart to Sloane, 30 June 1711, BL Sloane MS 4045 fols. 16-17.1tis not known

whether Stuart ever repaid them.40. Stuart to Sloane, 25 February 1710, BL Sloane MS 4042, fol. 105r; Stuart to

Sloane, 4 January 1710, BL Sloane MS 4042, fol. 83; Stuart to Sloane, 22 May 1710,

BL Sloane MS 4042, fcl. 137.41. Stuart, "Londini & Lugd. Barav. 1709 & 1710", GUL MS Hunter 529, fols. 59-

64. On Ruvsch. see Anronle M. Luyendijk-Elshout, "Death Enlightened, A Study ofFrederik Ruysch", Journal of the American Medical Association 212 (1970)' 121-26.

42. Stuart to Sloane, 4 January 1710, BL Sloane MS 4042, fol. 83v; Stuart to Sloane,

22 May 1710, BL Sloane MS 4042, fol. 137.43. Stuart to Sloane, 25 February 1710, BL Sloane MS 4042, fcl. 105r.44. Stuart to Sloane, 22 May 1710, BL Sloane MS 4042, fol. 137.45. Stuart, "Londmi & Lugd. Barav. 1709 & 1710", GUL MS Hunter 529, fols. 59-

64. "Lundy" was James Lundte (1687-1777), who enrolled at Letden in 1709 andreceived his M.D. fro9 Utrecht in 1710. He was later a physician in Edinburgh. HenryNicholson (1681-1723), MD. Leiden 1709, was later botany professor in Dublin;John Stevenson (1685-1757) also enrolled at Leiden in 1709 and received an M.D.from Harderwyck in 1710. He toOpracticed medicine in Edinburgh. See Innes Smith,

English-Speaking Students, 145, 170,224.

"A Scotsman on the Make": The Career of Alexander Stuart '75

46. Stuart to Sloane, 30 June 1711, BL Sloane MS 4045, fol. 16r.47. Ibid., fols. 16r-17v. On Petiver's journey, see E. Ashworth Underwood,

Boerhaave's Men at Leyden and Afrer (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1977),

148.48. Stuart ro Sloane, 7 November 1711, BL Sloane MS 4045, fols. 62r-63r.49. Will of Alexander Stuart, 28 August 1742 (codicil 2 September), Public Record

Office, London (PRO), PCC PROB 11/723, sig. 23.50. Alexander Stuart, Case Book, 1711-14, GUL MS Hunter 569; Alexander Stuart,

"Landini Novembris 1 rna 1712/0bservationes Medicinalum/Lib:", GUL MS Hunter

531.51. GUL MS Hunter 531.52. Alexander Stuart, Medical Case Book, 1714-16, GUL MS Hunter 535, fols.

222-23.53. Underwood notes that Stuart was the first of Boerhaave's pupils to be made

F.R.s.; Underwood, Boerhaave's Men, 149.54. On hospital appointments, see Susan Lawrence, Charitable Knowledge (Cam,

bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996),55-73; W. F. Bynum, "Physicians, Hospi-tals, and Career Structures", in William Hunter and the Eighteemh,Century Medical World,eds. W. F. Bynum and Roy Porter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985L105-28; Alexander Stuart and Gulielmus Wasey, "Medicinal Observations at the In-firmary in Petty France Westminster from June 17:1723 to June 30 1724", Royal Col-lege of Physicians, London, MS 625.

55. Bynum, "Physicians, Hospitals, and Career Structures", 109.56. Alexander Stuart, Medical Case Book, 1724-25, GUL MS Hunter 571, fols.

27-57,73-74. This notebook also contains a few notes dated 1728-30.57. W. A. Speck, Stability and Strife: England, 1714-1760 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard

University Press, 1977), 196-200; Hamilton, Diary, xxii and n; R. S. Westfall, Neverat Re.I" A Life of Isaac Newton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980),861-

62.58. Stuart, Will, PRO PCC PROB 11/723.59. Stuart, Case Book, 1724-25, GUL MS Hunter 571, fols. 193-227.60. For Douglass, see Dictionary of American Biography, s.v. "Douglass, William";

Innes Smith, English-Speaking Studenrs, 71.61. William Wagstaffe, A Letter to Dr Freind Shewing the Danger and Uncertainty of

Inoculating the Small Pox (London: Samuel Butler, 1722). On the inoculation contro-versy in general, see Genevieve Miller, The Adoption of Inoculation for Smallpox in En-gland and France (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1957).

62. On the household physicians, see John M. Beattie, The English Court in theReign of George I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967),48,188,279. Thepost of first physician was highly lucrative, but Beattie does not discuss the physicians-in-ordinary.

63. A listing of some of Stuart's subscriptions, dating back to 1714, appear in Peterand Ruth Wallis, Eighteenrh-Century Medics, 2d ed. (Newcastle: PHIBB, 1988), s.v."Stewart, Alexander, M.D.". However, the publicity Stuart gained from subscribingmust be set against his own straitened finances.

176 THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT: ESSAYS IN REINTERPRETATION

64. Clayton Atro, "The Society for the Encouragement of Learning", The Library,4th ser., 19 (l938): 263, quoting The Weekly Journal, 20 March 1725. 1am grateful toPatrick Lee for this reference.

65. Lawrence, Charitable Knowledge, 236. In the case to which she refers, Stuartadded a learned commentary to an anatomical description made by a surgeon. Unfor~tunarely, the dichotomy Lawrence wishes to draw between the roles of physician andsurgeon is not supported by Stuart's other articles, which comment on dissections andexperiments he performed himself.

66. Alexander Stuart, "An Essay upon the Use of Bile in the Animal Oeconomy,founded on an Observation of a Wound in the GaU-Bladder", Philosophical Transactions36 (1730): 341-63.

67. AlexanderStuart, "Experiments to Prove the Existence of a Fluid in the Nerves",Philosophical Transacrions 37 (1732): 327-31. See Edwin Clarke, "The Doctrine of rheHollow Nerve in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Cenrunes", in Medicine, Science,and CulMe, eds. Lloyd G. Stevenson and Robert Multhauf (Baltimore: Johns HopkinsUniversity Press, 1968), 123-41.

68. Alexander Stuart, "An Explanation of an Essay on the Use of the Bile in theAnimal Oeconcrnv", Philosophical Transacrions 38 (1733): 5-25.

69. Acto. "Society for the Encouragement of Learning", 264-65.70. Christine Gerrard, The Patriot Opposirion to Walpole: Politics, Poetry, and No-

riona/Myth, 1725-1742 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994),54-56.71. For Gordon (1692?-1754?), see Dicrionaryof National Biography, s.v. "Gordon,

Alexander". He wrote [cinerarium septentrionale: Or, A Journey thro' Most of the Conn-riesof SCotland, and those in the North of England (London: G. Strahan, 1726).72. Archibald Campbell, The Necessity of Revelarion:Or, An Enquiry into the Extent

of Human Powers with Respect roMatters of Religion(London: W. Bowyer, 1739). Theother work was John Stewart's translation of Newton's mathematical treatise Dequadratura, which appeared in 1745. My thanks to Paul Wood for information onStuart's contacts in 1736-37.

73. Atta, "Society for the Encouragement of Learning", 269-70; Alexander Stuart,Disserratio de structura er motu musculari (London: Samuel Richardson for the Societyfor the Encouragement of Learning, 1738).

74.1 hope to explore this topic more fully in another article. On the views of Kellland Pitcairne, see Anita Guerrini, "Newtonian Matter Theory, Chemistry, and Medl-cine, 1690-1713" (PhD. diss., Indiana University, 1983). Robert Schofield brieflydiscusses Stuart's Croonian lectures in his Mechanism and Materialism: British NawralPhilosophy in an Age of Reason (Pnnceron, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1970),192-93.

75. It is unclear whether the papers named in his will were previously published ornot; some of them sound like his Croon ian lectures (published as a supplement to thePhilosophical Transactions in 1739), but it is impossible to be certain.

76. Stuart, Will, PRO PCC PROB 11/723. These individuals are listed only bytheir last names, but I believe my identifications are correct.

77. The catalogue for the sale, dated 10October 1743, lists a numberofSruart's manu-scripts. I am grateful to Helen Brock for providing me with a copy of the relevant page.