MEMOIR OF DR WUKJHT, -•— 1 b'.'i 



controvertible evidence which had been recorded by 

 Dr Cuerie himself, not in the narrow language of a 

 too learned profession, Imt in a work which is destin- 

 ed for the use and enjoyment, as well as the benefit, 

 of mankind. Large allowance should no doubt be 

 made for the partiality of private friendship, in fram- 

 ing the funeral eulogium of departed worth, and it is 

 probable that the mere suppression, in such ephemeral 

 notices, of his own connection, with the basis of disco- 

 very on which Dr Currie had reared the pillar of his 

 fame, would have excited no feeling of surprise or 

 uneasiness in the mind of Dr Wright, But the 

 case was materially different, when he found, in a me- 

 moir of Dr Curri;:, prepared with becoming care and 

 attention, many years after his death, sanctioned, too, 

 by the name of a respectable divine, and destined for. 

 preservation in the pages of a scientific and popular 

 work, like the Edinburgh Encyclopaadia, that his own 

 name was not only in a great measure suppressed, but 

 that his undoubted priority in the path of discovery 

 was brought into question by the detail of a youthful 

 adventure, which is said to have occurred to Dr Cur- 

 rie in the year 1778, as illustrating the pernicious ef- 

 fects of an over indulgence in the cold bath, and which 

 is introduced with the exordium, that " it is curious 

 to observe, to what apparently trivial occurrences we 

 are indebted for some of the most important discove- 

 ries in science and art." 



Dr Wright was more sensitive to this inroad on 

 his dearest possession, when he found it sanctioned bv 

 the name of a gentleman, who was not only personal- 



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