Among those who perished in the wreck of the _Orion_, was Dr. John Burns, Professor of Surgery in the University of Glasgow, aged about eighty years. Dr. Burns held a distinguished place in the medical world, for at least half a century, as an author and a teacher. He was a son of the Rev. Dr. John Burns, for more than sixty years minister of the Barony parish of Glasgow, who died about fourteen years ago, at the age of ninety. He was originally intended to be a manufacturer, and in his time the necessary training for this business included a practical application to the loom. A disease of the knee-joint unfitted him for becoming a weaver, and he turned his attention to the medical profession, winch the neighboring university afforded him easy and ample means of studying. He early entered into business as a general practitioner, but his ambition led him very soon to be an instructor. In 1800, he published _Dissertations on Inflammation_, which raised his name to a high position in the literature of his profession. In 1807, he published a kindred volume on Hemorrhage. In the mean time he had turned his attention to lecturing, and he continued to give, for many years, lectures on midwifery. His observations and experience on this subject he offered to the world in _The Principles of Midwifery_, a work which has run through twelve editions, and been translated into several of the continental languages. It is very elaborate and valuable, and as each succeeding edition presented the result of the author's increasing experience, it became a standard in every medical library. Its chief defect is a want of clearness in the arrangement, and sometimes in the language. In 1815, the crown instituted a Professorship of Surgery in the Glasgow University, and the Duke of Montrose, its chancellor, appointed to it Mr. Burns, a choice which the voice of the profession generally approved. The value of the professorship might average 500l. yearly.