xi DR. CUMING OF DORCHESTER 125 



that any others had been employed. Read the tenth 

 satire of Juvenal, and reflect on the vanity of human 

 fears and wishes." x 



DR. WILLIAM CUMING 



William Cuming, Fothergill's most intimate medical 

 friend, was born in 1714, the son of a merchant of high 

 character in Edinburgh. Entering the Medical School 

 of the university, young Cuming was one of the band of 

 able students who founded the Medical Society there, 

 reading himself the first paper before it, on Rabies canina. 

 Leaving the university in the next year without taking 

 a degree, he spent some time in further studies in France 

 and Flanders, travelling in part with his friend, after- 

 wards the well-known Dr. Robert Whytt, and attending 

 the lectures of Boerhaave at Ley den. During a stay 

 of three days in Rheims, the young men took out degrees 

 in medicine at the university, after separate Latin 

 examinations, " for a considerable space," in anatomy, 

 physiology and various diseases. Later he visited 

 London with a view to finding an opening for practice as 

 a physician in a country town in England. Dr. Mead 

 proposed Lynn, but Dr. Wm. Browne objected, because 

 he had no degree from Oxford or Cambridge ; Norwich 



1 In a poem, " The Medical Review," 1775, Dr. J. Gilborne depicts the 

 physicians, surgeons and apothecaries of Dublin passing in procession to the 

 Temple of Fame. 



" Cleghorn in human structure can explore 

 What no anatomist has found before ; 

 By sons of Irish heroes ever loved 

 For eloquence and surgery improved : 

 Exhibits goodness whereso'er he goes, 

 On rich and poor great benefits bestows, 

 Like the sun rising, without bar or bound, 

 Gives health and joy, and influence around." 



Cleghorn's account of some rude stone monuments in Minorca in a letter 

 to a friend, 1739, was communicated to the Society of Antiquaries. See 

 MS. Add. 6183, p. 58, Brit. Mus. See also Cleghorn, Index of Lectures (Dublin, 

 1756) ; his Memoirs, by Lettsom ; Mem. Lettsom, ii. 364, iii. 288 ; Foth. 

 Works, iii. p. xcviii ; Med. Obs. & Ing. iii. 7, no, 229, vi. 231 ; Edin. Med. 

 & Surg. Journ. Ixiii. (1845) p. 95 ; Diet. Nat. Biog. ; Dr. T. Percy C. 

 Kirkpatrick, History of Medical Teaching in Trinity College, Dublin, and 

 references there given; Kirkpatrick and Jellett, The Book of the Rotunda 

 Hospital, p. 107 ; A. Macalister, James Macartney. 



