CULLEK. 



48$ 



dullen. frequently to evening parties at his house, conversed 

 ~^Y^*^ with them upon the most familiar terms, endeavoured 

 to solve all their doubts and difficulties, gave them 

 the use of his extensive medical library, and treated 

 them in every respect with the kindness of a friend, 

 and the affection of a parent. In their sickness, he at- 

 tended upon them as their physician, and uniformly 

 refused to accept of any fees, — a species of generosity 

 which had not been customary in Edinburgh before 

 his time. 



The high, and even enthusiastic favour in which he 

 Was held by the students to the very last, was strongly 

 evinced by the many eulogies upon his character, to be 

 found liberally interspersed among the numerous inau- 

 gural dissertations of his pupils, and by the affectionate 

 addresses presented to him by the Royal Medical and 

 Physical Societies upoh his resignation of the prac- 

 tical chair in the university, a few months before his 

 death. 



No chemical discoveries of any moment have been 

 attributed to Dr Cullen ; but he was a most useful and 

 successful teacher of the science, so far as it had then 

 advanced, in consequence of the liberal and compre- 

 hensive views which he took of its facts and doctrines, 

 and the admirable arrangement in which he presented 

 these to his pupils. He also gave very complete his- 

 tories of several of its departments, by an accurate 

 collection and clear distribution of facts, — particular- 

 ly of such facts as are connected with medicine and 

 pharmacy. His only publication on the subject, was 

 a small pamphlet, containing an account of some ex- 

 periments on heat. 



His lectures oh materia medica, though necessarily 

 put together in great haste, were so much admired, 

 that copies of them, taken from notes, were multi- 

 plied among the students ; and at length one of these 

 copies was surreptitiously put to press in 1772. Dr 

 Cullen at first obtained an interdict against this im- 

 perfect and piratical publication; but having under- 

 gone some corrections, it was afterwards allowed to 

 proceed. He promised, at the time, to give an im- 

 proved edition of the work, which he accordingly pub* 

 fished in 1 789, in two volumes quarto. This edition, 

 though certainly more full, and perhaps more instruc- 

 tive than the former, greatly wants those fascinating 

 and systematic general views of the subject by which 

 it was recommended, and which the author perhaps 

 endeavoured too much to alter or modify. Its inferi- 

 ority may also have been in part occasioned by the 

 energy of his mind beginning to decay, at his then 

 advanced period of life. This work, however, ma- 

 terially differs from the ordinary systematic perform- 

 ances on the subject, and is in a great measure the 

 philosophy of the materia medica, rather than a dry 

 matter-of-fact history of its various topics. It is 

 arranged according to the medical indications, and 

 contains admirable introductory observations on each 

 class, forming an excellent system of Therapeutics. 

 Many also of the general doctrines in the practice of 

 medicine are introduced, and these are even illustrated 

 in some detail. 



The character of Dr Cullen as a teacher of the theory 

 and practice of medicine, is now only to be estimated 

 from the works he published as text-books for his lec- 

 tures. 



While professor of the theory or institutes of me- 

 dicine, he published a short text-book on that sub- 

 ject, but it was never completed or moulded into a re- 



VOL. VIL PAHT II. 



gular treatise, and still remains in it? original form, Cullea 

 merely intimating the heads of his lectures in that de- """^ 

 partment. The other, which was designed to be a text- 

 book for the course of the practice, was entitled Firtf, 

 Lines of the Practice of Physic. Of this, various edi- 

 tions appeared successively, enlarged and altered as his 

 views expanded in the progress of his professional tam- 

 bours. The complete edition, not afterwards changed, 

 appeared in 1784-, in four volumes octavo. In this 

 work, regarding the actions of the moving powers in 

 the animal economy, as the leading principles of in- 

 quiry, in considering the diseases of the human body, 

 he assumed, as formerly mentioned, the general doc- 

 trines previously advanced by Hoffman on this subject, 

 but considei-ably corrected and extended. In the ap- 

 plication of these to the consideration and explanation 

 of the symptoms and nature of disease, he disclaims 

 the adoption of what are usually termed hypothetical 

 notions or theories, asserting that the doctrines he en- 

 deavours to establish are just inductions or generaliza- 

 tions from observed facts, in relation to the healthy and 

 diseased states of the body ; and he certainly has shews! 

 himself a very faithful collector of facts, to which he 

 allows all due weight in the course of his reasonings. 

 He was not satisfied, however, with a mere empirical 

 basis for medical practice, but always endeavoured ta 

 investigate the proximate cause of diseasej or, in other; 

 words, the intimate nature of the diseased action, on 

 which to ground a rational method of cure, fitted to 

 restore that action from its vitiated to its natural and 

 healthy state. The most remarkable of his attempts of 

 this kind, is his doctrine respecting the proximate cause 

 of fever, in which he endeavours to establish the co- 

 existence of spasm and atony in the human body. How- 

 ever subtle the reasonings may be deemed, on which 

 this and others of his opinions are founded, his work 

 certainly possesses great merit in the excellent descrip- 

 tions and sagacious discriminations which it contains-, 

 and in the full and commonly just views of practice 

 which it displays and inculcates. For, though ground- 

 ed upon all the refinements of speculation, it yet shews 

 that he paid so much respect to experience, as to submit 

 to its decisions on all points of practice, even at the risk 

 of appearing occasionally to contradict his own spe- 

 culative doctrines. 



Another class-book is his Synopsis Nosologic Meiho~ 

 dicce, of which the third and complete edition appeared 

 in 1782. This contains abstracts of the systematic no- 

 sologies of Sauvages, Linnaeus, Vagel, and Sagar, as 

 introductory to a new arrangement of his own, intend- 

 ed as an improvement upon all the others ; and he has 

 certainly succeeded in the task, as far perhaps as the 

 nature of the subject could admit. The First Lines of 

 the Practice of Physic, and the Synopsis Nc.sologia: Me- 

 thodicce, still remain standard books, and are still per- 

 haps unrivalled. A pamphlet, published in 1 775, Con- 

 cerning the Recovery of Persons drowned, and seemiiigly 

 dead, written ahd published, we believe, at the re- 

 quest of the Scots Board of Police, completes the list of 

 his works, so far as we have been able to learn. 



The person of Dr Cullen, — we speak of him only in 

 his advanced years, — though striking, and not unpleas- 

 ing, was by no means elegant. His countenance was 

 expressive, and his eye was remarkably lively and pe-. 

 netrating. His figure was tall and thin, and he had a 

 remarkable stoop about the shoulders. In walking, he 

 had a contemplative look, and did not seem much to 

 notice the objects around him ; but in conversation he 

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