BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 249
gentleman of our acquaintance relates that he one day happened -to pounce upon
him at his seat of Tarlogie. Lord Ankerville had then reached his seventy-fifth
year. Being alone, he had just sat down to dinner ; and not having expected a
strauger, he apologised for his uncropped beard. Our friend was, of course,
welcomed to the board, and experienced the genuine hospitality of a Highland
mansion. After having done ample justice to the table, and when his lordship
had secured a full allowance of claret under his belt, he went to his toilette, and,
to the astonishment of his guest, appeared at supper cleanly and closely shaved,
to whom he remarked, that his hand was now more steady than it would have
been in the morning.
Lord Ankerville died at his seat of Tarlogie on the 16th August 1805, in the
seventy-eighth year of his age. His residence in Edinburgh was in St. Andrew
Square.
No. CI.
FRANCIS HOME, M.D.,
PROFESSOR OF MATERIA MEDICA IN THE UNIVERSITY OB EDINBURGH!
AND ONE OF THE KING’S PFIYSICIANS FOR SCOTLAND.
DR. HOME was born on the 17th November 1719. He was the third son of
Mr. Home of Eccles, an advocate, and author of fieveral works, professional and
historical. He placed his son under the charge of Mr. Cruickshanks of Dunse,
then esteemed one of the best classical scholars and teachers, and who had the
faculty of inspiring his scholars with a taste for classical learning. Mr. Home
having chosen medicine as a profession, served an apprenticeship with Mr.
Rattray, then the most eminent surgeon in Edinburgh. He afterwards studied
under the medical Professors of the University of Edinburgh of the period ;
and applied with so much zeal and assiduity as frequently to obtain the approbation
of his teachers. He contracted friendships with many of his fellow students,
which lasted through life ; and he was among the few who founded the Royal
Medical Society, which has continued to the present day, and has contributed
greatly to the celebrity of the Edinburgh school of medicine. After finishing
his studies Mr. Home obtained a commission of surgeon in a regiment of
dragoons, and joined it on the same day with his friend the late Sir William
Erekine. He served in Flanders with that regiment during the whole of the
“ seven-years’ war.” Amidst the din of arms, and the desultory life of soldiers,
Mr. Home did not spend his time in idleness. He discharged his duty so faithfully
that he often received the approbation of his superior officers, and especially
of Sir John Pringle, the head of the medical department of that army ; and he
laid up a store of medical facts, many of which he afterwards published. At the
end of several campaigns, instead of partaking of the relaxation and dissipation
. of winter quarters, Mr. Home, as often as he could obtain leave of absence, went
2 K
250 BI 0 GR AP HI C AL S'KET C HES.
to Leyden, which still retained a high reputation as a medical school ; and he
studied there under the medical teachers of that time.
At the termination of the war Mr. Home settled in Edinburgh, and graduated
in the year 1750, choosing for the subject of his inaugural dissertation, the
remittent fever which had prevailed very severely in the army- a treatise which
is yet quoted as one of the best on the disease, In 1768 he obtained the
Professorship of Materia Medica in the University of Edinburgh, the duties of
which he executed for thirty years with great industry, zeal, and reputation.
During this period he contributed, along with his other eminent colleagues, to
maintain the high character of the University of Edinburgh as a medical school.
He died on the 15th of February 1813, at the very advanced age of ninety-four,
preserving his faculties entire till within a short period of his death.
Few physicians have done more to promote the advancement of medicine,
as a science and as an art, than Dr. Home. He published several valuable and
esteemed works. His " Principia Jledicinar I' contains a very excellent and
scientific history of diseases. It is written in correct and elegant Latinity,
showing his intimate acquaintance with the best ancient classical authors. This
work contributed materially to raise his reputation, especially on the Continent,
where.it was soon adopted by several professors as a text-book. It has undergone
several editions ; and even now, after the lapse of three-fourths of a century,
and notwithstanding the great improvements in medicine, it is still one of the
best and most useful compendiums on the subject. Dr. Home added numerous
and very important facts to the history and treatment of many diseases, and
contributed much to establish the art of medicine on the basis of experience and
observation. He was the first who described " the Croup " as a separate and
distinct disease ; and his account of it first called the attention of physicians to
it. Although, since its first publication, much has been added to its pathology,
yet Dr. Home's treatise still remains as a standard and much esteemed work on
the history and treatment of this very fatal disease. His works, entitled " Medical
Facts and Experiments," and his " Clinical Experiments, Histories, and Dissertations,"
cqntain a most valuable collection of very important factls regarding the
history of diseases and their treatment ; and they introduced several new remedies,
many of which still stand the test of the experience of more than half a century.
Dr. Home did not confine his observations and publications to medicine
alone. His work, entitled " Experiments on Bleaching," for which he obtained
a gold medal from the Honourable Board of Trustees for the Improvement of
Manufactures in North Britain, was published in the year 1756, by request of
the Board ; and he received many testimonies of eminent manufacturers, whose
art it had much improved. His treatise on Dunse Spa, published in 1751,
brought that mineral spring into much notice. His Essay on the Principles of
Agriculture long continued to be the best scientific account of that most
important art, and obtained for him the first Professorship of Agriculture in the
University of Edinburgh, which he afterwards resigned in' favour of the late
Dr. Coventry.
