title: John Aitken (d. 1790)--grinder or scholar?
abstract: John Aitken attended the University of Edinburgh between 1763 and 1769 but did not graduate MD. He gained the membership (i.e. fellowship) of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1770, and was for two sessions Senior President of the Royal Medical Society. Between 1771 and 1790 he published numerous books and pamphlets on surgery, medicine, midwifery, anatomy and physiology. As a surgeon at the Royal Infirmary, from 1779, he lectured on most subjects in the medical curriculum. John Struthers was particularly scathing of Aitken's scholarship, and this article attempts to restore Aitken's reputation as a scholar and probably one of the first of the extra-academical lecturers, who taught both anatomy and surgery in Edinburgh from 1779 until his death in 1790.
authors.affiliation: Section of Anatomy, Division of Biomedical and Clinical Laboratory Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Hugh Robson Building, George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9XD, UK. M.Kaufman@ed.ac.uk
authors.forename: Matthew H
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Kaufman
mesh_terms: D004501:Education, Medical / Q000266:history*; D013502:General Surgery / Q000266:history*; D049671:History, 18th Century; D006801:Humans; D012606:Scotland; D013663:Teaching / Q000266:history