Gilchrist, Ebenezer

, a Scotch physician of eminence, was born at Dumfries in 1707. He began the study of medicine at Edinburgh, which he afterwards prosecuted at London and Paris. He obtained his degree of M. D. from the university of Rheims; and in 1732 he returned to the place of his nativity, where he afterwards constantly resided, and continued the practice of medicine till his death in 1774. Few physicians of the last century have been more successful in the exercise of their profession, or have contributed more to the improvement of the healing art. Having engaged in business at an early period of life, his attention was wholly devoted to observation. Endowed by nature with a judgment acute and solid, with a genius active and inventive, he soon distinguished himself by departing, in various important particulars, from established but unsuccessful modes of practice. Several of the improvements which he introduced have procured him deserved reputation both at home and abroad. In different | medical collections are to he found several of his performances) which prove that he had something new and useful to offer upon every subject to which he applied his attention. But those writings which do him most credit are two long dissertations on “Neivous Fevers,” in the “Medical Essays and Observations” published by a society at Edinburgh and a “Treatise on the use of Sea-voyages in medicine,” which first made its appearance in 1756, and was reprinted in 1771. In the former, his recommendation of wine in nervous fevers^ and in the latter, of sea-voyages in cases of consumption, has been generally attended t in modem practice, and with great advantage. ¹