WILLIAM CULLEN: HIS CALIBRE AS A TEACHER, AND AN UNPUBLISHED INTRODUCTION TO HIS A TREATISE OF THE MATERIA MEDICA, LONDON, 1773

Abstract

Texts and Documents WILLIAM CULLEN: HIS CALIBRE AS A TEACHER, AND AN UNPUBLISHED INTRODUCTION TO HIS A TREATISE OF THE MATERIA MEDICA, LONDON, 1773. WHILE THE main purpose of this paper is to make readily available Cullen's introduction to his first (1761) Edinburgh materia medica course, some characteristics of Cullen's teaching, which was possibly the most significant in eighteenth-century British medical education, will also be considered. Cullen's 1761 materia medica course-omitting the introduction-was published in the early 1770s, initially without Cullen's sanction, as Lectures on the Materia Medica.1 That Cullen's greatly enlarged and monumental Treatise of the Materia Medica (Edinburgh, 1789) was an entirely rewritten version of the Lectures is perhaps the best testimony to his feelings of the inadequacy of the pirated version. Unfortunately, however, the rewritten 1789 Treatise had little of the spontaneity of the Lectures, which, in turn, lacked some of the sparkle characteristic of many manuscripts of students' notes. The main value of the unpublished introduction (see pp. 84-87) is that it sets out in detail Cullen's plan and aims for his course. In contrast, the printed Lectures merely list the four headings under which Cullen considered each drug, with a comment that knowledge of the subject is of two kinds (the study of the natural history and of the crude, dried drug) and brief critical remarks on theories for discovering the therapeutic properties of drugs (e.g., the doctrine of signatures). All these points are amplified and made clear in the unpublished introduction. For instance, one learns of Cullen's attitudes to Linnaeus' classification and how far he intended to use it. Cullen emphasized, too, the difficulties of establishing a generally accepted scheme of classification and drew attention to writings 'best calculated for assisting the student, tho' each follow a different method'. Apart from Linnaeus' botanical scheme he referred to Lewis's alphabetical arrangement,2 Geoffroy's grouping into mineral, vegetable, and animal,3 Cartheuser's classification based on sensory characteristics,4 and Chomel's pharmacological classification.5 Additionally, the introduction includes strong and trenchant criticisms of the views and opinions of various authors on the therapeutic properties of medicines, as well as Cullen's own thoughts on the value of chemistry. But the unpublished introduction does more than give a clear understanding of 1 Much information on the furore over the publication can be found in J. Thomson, An Account

The Enduring Legacy of 250 Years of Pharmacology in Edinburgh

“…In the winter of 1760-1761, following the death of the professor of materia medica, Alston, Cullen gave the materia medica lectures for one year only. The lectures were much appreciated by the students; copies of the lecture notes began to circulate widely and in 1772 appeared in print in London without Cullen's consent (6)(7)(8)(9)(10).…”

The Enlightenment Kidney—Nephrology in and about the Eighteenth Century

“…With the observation of Thomas Willis in 1674 that the residue of the evaporated urine of diabetics tasted sweet “as if imbued with honey (quasi melle) and sugar” began the deciphering of the etiology of this ancient disease (56,57). His argument that diabetes is not a disease of the retentive powers of the kidney as it had been considered theretofore, but one of the blood in which sweetness is delivered to the kidney, was established by the meticulous studies of Matthew Dobson (1732–1784) who demonstrated in 1776 the presence in the blood and urine of diabetics the same saccharine material, ultimately characterized as glucose in 1817.…”

“…His argument that diabetes is not a disease of the retentive powers of the kidney as it had been considered theretofore, but one of the blood in which sweetness is delivered to the kidney, was established by the meticulous studies of Matthew Dobson (1732–1784) who demonstrated in 1776 the presence in the blood and urine of diabetics the same saccharine material, ultimately characterized as glucose in 1817. In conducting his studies, Dobson had consulted the chemist William Cullen (1710–1790), who in 1769 called attention to polyuric patients in whom the urine was insipid in taste, and added the descriptive adjective “mellitus” to the diabetes described by Willis over a century earlier (56,57). The definition and classification of polyuria was clarified further in 1794 by Johann Peter Frank (1745–1821) who subdivided it into true for diabetes mellitus and spurious or false for diabetes insipidus (58).…”

Sir James Edward Smith (1759-1828) MD FRS, botanist, co-founder of the Linnean Society of London

“…6 He used the Linnean system of classification of plants 'as the only method of arriving at a distinct knowledge of them' and the students, knowing the name, were 'enabled to know, by the class, its properties'. 7 In the main, Cullen followed the system that Linnaeus used in his materia medica although he considered that, at times, Linnaeus extended his system too far.…”