George Fordyce was a distinguished Scottish physician, lecturer on medicine, and chemist, who was a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.
Background
George Fordyce was born at Aberdeen in 1736, a short time after the death of his father, George Fordyce, proprietor of a small landed estate called Broadford, near the city. He was taken from home at the age of two following his mother"s remarriage and was sent to Foveran, Aberdeenshire, where he received his schooling.
Education
Fordyce had decided to study medicine and was apprenticed to his uncle, Doctor John Fordyce, in Uppingham, in Rutland. From Edinburgh he went to Leyden, where he studied anatomy under the famous anatomist Bernhard Siegfried Albinus.
Career
He later returned to Edinburgh, where he took his degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1758. His inaugural dissertation was on catarrh. In 1759 he returned to England, having decided to settle in London as a teacher and medical practitioner.
Despite his relations" disapproval, he persisted, and by the end of 1759 had commenced a course of lectures upon chemistry.
In 1764, he also began to lecture upon Materia medica and the practice of physic. He delivered these lectures for nearly 30 years.
In 1765 he became a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians and in 1770 was elected physician to Street Thomas" Hospital. This latter was chiefly to secure his assistance with a new edition of the College"s Pharmacopoeia.
He was Harveian Orator in 1791.
In 1783, with John Hunter, he assisted in setting up a small society of physicians and surgeons, which later published several volumes of transactions under the title of Transactions of a Society for the improvement of medical and chirurgical knowledge, and attended its meetings regularly until shortly before his death. He died in London in 1802 and was buried at Street Anne"s, Soho.
Membership
Royal Society]
In 1774 he was chosen as a member of the Literary Club, in 1776 a Fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1778 a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.