A few months before the publication of the Essay on Gleets, Marat had received an M.D. degree from the University of St. Andrews. The degree was equivalent to an honorary one, and, as was the custom of the time, was given on the recommendation of two medical men known to the Senate. The two who recommended Marat were Hugh James and William Buchan, doctors of medicine in Edinburgh. Marat passed no examination for the degree, and probably did not even go to St. Andrews to receive it. At that time it was customary to forward the Diploma on receipt of the graduation fee. Mr. Morse Stephens[2] is of opinion that Marat received degrees from other universities, because in 1777 on his appointment as physician to the body-guard of the Comte d’Artois he is described as “docteur en médecine de plusieurs facultés d’Angleterre.” It may, however, be pointed out that at this date there were very few universities or faculties granting an M.D. degree, and also that the older universities did not give the Doctor of Medicine as an honorary degree. It is known that Marat resided for some time at Edinburgh and at Dublin, but there is no record of his having received a degree from either of these Universities. Although diligent search has been made by historians no record of any other qualification has been found, and it may fairly be assumed that the above description is an exaggeration of the St. Andrews degree. There is evidence in both pamphlets that Marat practised medicine in Paris before coming to London. In the Essay on Gleets[3] he speaks of his “ten years practice”; this probably gives a clue to the actual date of the beginning of his professional life. The duration of his practice in France before his coming to England must have been short. He took up his residence in England in 1766; the Essay is dated November 1775, and Marat was born in 1742: allowing for the ten years he mentions, he would have started practice about 1765, at which date he was twenty-three years of age. The “Gleet” Tract shows that Marat’s early work was not devoted entirely to this department of practice. Mr. Morse Stephens[4] says, “from Bordeaux he went to Paris, where he effected a remarkable cure of a disease of the eyes, which had been abandoned as hopeless both by physicians and quacks, by means of electricity.” This, no doubt, is the case of _Charlotte Blondel_, described on page 34 of this reprint. Marat himself says, speaking of the employment of bougies for the treatment of gleet, “as it was not my province to treat venereal diseases, this method had not engaged my attention.”