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ALSTON, CHARLES, M.D. an
eminent botanist, was born in 1683, in Lanarkshire, and spent his early
years at Hamilton palace, under the patronage of the duchess of Hamilton.
Her grace wished him to study the law, but he preferred botany and medicine,
and accordingly, in 1716, set out for Leyden, where those sciences were at
that time taught by the illustrious Boerhaave. Here he found a great number
of young Scotsmen engaged in the same pursuit, and all inspired with an
uncommon degree of enthusiasm in their studies, which they had caught from
their master. Alston, after taking his degree as doctor of physic, returned
to his native country, and began to practise in Edinburgh. He obtained the
sinecure office of king's botanist, through the influence of the duke of
Hamilton, heritable keeper of Holyrood-house, to which the garden was
attached. This garden he enriched by large collections which he had made in
Holland, where botanical science was then more highly cultivated than in any
other country in Europe. In 1720, notwithstanding that a botanical class was
taught in the college by a professor of eminence named Preston, he began a
course of lectures in the king's garden. Preston, at length waxing old,
Alston was, in 1738, chosen to succeed him, as professor of botany and
materia medica united. He was exceedingly laborious in his duties as a
professor, giving a course on botany every summer, and one on materia medica
every winter; and never sparing any pains which he thought could be
conducive to the progress of his pupils. The celebrated Dr Fothergill, in
his character of Dr Russell, bears ample testimony to the assiduity of Dr
Alston, who had been his master; and describes in glowing language the
benefit which those who attended him had the means of reaping, his caution
in speculation, and how laborious he was in experiment.
For the assistance of his
pupils, he published, about 1740, a list of the officinal plants cultivated
in the Edinburgh medical garden. Of Linnaeus's system, which was first
promulgated in 1736, Dr Alston, like many other philosophers of his day, was
a steady opponent. He published a paper against it, on the sexes of plants,
in the first volume of "Physical and Literary Essays," a
miscellany which was commenced at Edinburgh, in 1751. The controversy which
took place at that period amongst naturalists has now lost all its interest,
seeing that the method of Linnaeus, after serving a useful purpose, has
been, superseded by the natural system, to the foundation of which Linnaeus
in no small degree contributed, but which it was left to Jussieu and De
Candolle to mature. Dr Alston also contributed some articles to an Edinburgh
miscellany entitled "Medical Essays;" the most important is one on
opium. In 1753, he published an introduction to Dr Patrick Blair's Index
Materiae Medicae, a work which resembled his own index in a considerable
degree. This introduction was a separate work, and was entitled, Tyrocinium
Botanicun Edinburgense. Dr Alston, as the contemporary of the first
Monro, and professor of a kindred branch of science, was by no means
unworthy of either his time or his place. He must be considered as one of
those who have contributed to the exaltation of the college of Edinburgh, as
a school of medical science. He died on the 22nd of November, 1760, in the
seventy-seventh year of his age. |
