JAMES GREGORY, 1753–1821 ‘If in doubt, “lead with trumps,” is counsel so old As never to fail with the game in a fixture; And medical men, in their doubt, I am told, Are safe when they lead with—_Gregory’s Mixture_!’ —OLD PLAY. It was in the middle of the session, 1772–73, that John Gregory died, leaving as we know his work in full swing. The university authorities were told, not of his illness, but of his death, and they were greatly at a loss as to who should continue the course of lectures which Professor Gregory had commenced with so much vigour. In this difficulty it was that James Gregory his son stepped forward; although he was only a medical student, he offered to deliver lectures on the Practice of Physic till the end of the term, and this proposal was most gratefully accepted by the university. There is something which is perhaps not wholly unattractive in the idea of being the professor as well as the student; but at nineteen to lecture, and to lecture so well as to receive in consequence the offer of a chair at twenty-three, is a triumph which is rare indeed. James Gregory was born in Aberdeen in 1753, and even as a child his mind always seems to have been keenly awake. He left the Grammar School of Aberdeen when he was eleven, having learned all that was to be learned there, and entered King’s College at an age at which clever boys now leave a preparatory school. In the same year when his father removed to Edinburgh James Gregory entered that university, and there he spent the next years of his life. Later he went up to Christ Church, Oxford, of which his cousin was then dean. Oxford did not inspire him much, for indeed learning was then at a very low level there, but he continued his work at classics, and came to write Latin with fluency, Greek when there was occasion, and both ‘with classical elegance,’ if we are to believe his admiring contemporaries. It is probable that it was at Oxford that James Gregory resolved to follow in his father’s footsteps, and become a doctor. There were of course many inducements, and all the influence of his family would be brought to bear on that side; but beyond this may we not believe that visions were given him of the golden fame that a hitherto unimagined mixture would bring to the name of Gregory unto all time? Whether the vision was vouchsafed to him or not, he returned to Scotland and began his medical studies in 1767.