Andrew Duncan, the younger was a Scottish physician and professor at Edinburgh University.
Background
He was the son of Andrew Duncan, the elder and his wife Elizabeth Knox, born at Adam Square in Edinburgh on 10 August 1773. Returning to Edinburgh, he became a fellow of the College of Physicians of Edinburgh, and physician to the Royal Public Dispensary, assisting his father also in editing the Annals of Medicine.
Education
He was then apprenticed (1787-1792) to Alexander and George Wood, surgeons of Edinburgh. He graduated Master of Arts 1794.
Duncan studied in London in 1794-1795 at the Windmill Street School, under Matthew Baillie, William Cumberland Cruikshank, and James Wilson.
Career
His early education was at the High School in Edinburgh. at Edinburgh in 1793, and Doctor of Medicine He then made two long visits to the continent, studying medical practice in Göttingen, Vienna, Pisa, and Naples, and meeting Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, Johann Peter Frank, Antonio Scarpa, and Lazzaro Spallanzani. He later became physician to the Fever Hospital at Queensberry House. In 1807, a professorship of medical jurisprudence and medical police was created at Edinburgh, with Duncan as first professor, with an endowment of £100 per annum.
But attendance at lectures in this subject was not made compulsory.
In 1819 he resigned his professorship of medical jurisprudence on being appointed joint professor with his father of the institutes of medicine. In 1821 he was elected without opposition professor of materia medica.
In 1827, Duncan had a severe attack of fever, and his strength afterwards gradually declined. He lectured until nearly the end of the session 1831-1832, and died at home 45 York Place on 13 May 1832, in his fifty-eighth year.
He is buried in Street Johns Churchyard on Princes Street.
James Scarth Combe.
Membership
From 1809 to 1822, he acted as secretary of senatus and librarian to the university. While from 1816 until his death he was an active member of the college commission for rebuilding the university, including the Adam-Playfair buildings.