James Gregory (physician)

James Gregory (January 1753 – 2 April 1821) was a Scottish physician.

Early life and education

He was the eldest son of John Gregory (1724-1773) and Elizabeth Forbes (died 1761), and was born in Aberdeen. He was educated at Aberdeen Grammar School, King's College, University of Aberdeen, and the University of Edinburgh.

He accompanied his father to Edinburgh in 1764, and after going through the usual course of literary studies at that university, he was for a short time a student at Christ Church, Oxford. It was there probably that he acquired that taste for classical learning which afterwards distinguished him. He studied medicine at Edinburgh, and, after graduating doctor of medicine in 1774, spent the greater part of the next two years in Leiden, Paris, and in Italy.

Medicine in Edinburgh

Shortly after his return to Scotland he was appointed in 1776 to the chair his father had formerly held, and in the following year he also entered on the duties of teacher of clinical medicine in the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.

On the illness of Dr William Cullen in 1790 he was appointed joint-professor of the practice of medicine, and he became the head of the School of Medicine at the University of Edinburgh on the death of Dr Cullen in the same year.

As a medical practitioner Gregory was for the last ten years of his life at the head of the profession in Scotland (for part of which time he was in partnership with Thomas Brown, M.D.).

He was at one time president of the Royal College......
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