Medical Cases, Selected from the Records of the PUBLIC DISPENSARY at Edinburgh; With Remarks and Observations; Being the Substance of Case-Lectures, delivered during the years 1776-7.

Printed for Charles Elliot; And J. Murray. Edinburgh. 1778. 8vo.. pp. xv, (i), 370. Engraved portrait frontispiece. Original boards, new cloth spine, uncut and partly unopened, the covers with the paper mostly worn to the boards, a small worm track in the top of the fore-edge margin of the last few leaves not affecting text, paper with faint browning. *Also contains Duncan's Harveian Oration - De Laudibus Gulielmi Harvei Oratio, Habita in Aedibus Academiae Mediae, prope aulam Collegii Regii Chirurgorum Edinburgensis, Ipsis Calendis Aprilis, 1778, Binis jam elapsis seculis ab ipsius natali. C. Elliot. Edinburgh. 1778. This was issued separately but here is added to the Cases, with continuous pagination and register. The book has added interest from the fact that CHARLES DARWIN [1758-1778], first son of Erasmus Darwin and uncle of Charles Robert Darwin, was assistant to Duncan in the Edinburgh Dispensatory - see page 4 Preface : 'It is but fair to mention, that the histories of the cases, taken at the admission of the patients, were not drawn up by myself. For these I have been indebted to the aid of three gentlemen, Mr. William Browne from Yorkshire, Mr. Samuel Byam Athill from Antigua, and Mr. Charles Darwin from Litchfield, who, while they have been students of medicine at Edinburgh, have, at different periods, officiated as my assistants at the Dispensary.' Some twenty-five case histories are discussed in this book, though it is not revealed who was responsible for taking the admission notes. However, in case XXV, page 335, Duncan gives credit to Darwin as follows: 'Mr. Darwin, who officiated as medical assistant at the Dispensary at the time when this patient's case was treated, and, who, besides extensive knowledge in every branch of medicine, is also eminently distinguished for his acquaintance with natural history, had the first opportunity of examining this worm after it was discharged. He found it to be one of that kind which Mr. Linnaeus has distinguished by the name of the Taenia lata.' Darwin died from a wound received in the dissecting room in Edinburgh. He was clearly a talented observer in medicine and science and the author of a posthumous work, edited by his father in 1780 - 'Experiments establishing a criterion between mucaginous and purulent matter'.