He was a hedge about his friends, A heckle to his foes, lady; If any man did him gainsay, He felt his deadly blows, lady. It is really a pity, but no sketch of Professor James Gregory could be adequate without mentioning some of the more important of his professional feuds. Take the Infirmary for example, with which he was connected from so early a date as 1777, and where he made one of the most sweeping and necessary reforms that have ever taken place in the management of that institution. He early saw that it was neither for the good of the patients, nor for the good of the students, that the physicians and surgeons should attend the wards for only a month at a time, and against this he set himself with all the zeal of which he was capable. He disapproved the time-honoured privilege enjoyed by every member of the Royal College of Physicians, and every member of the Royal College of Surgeons, to doctor the Infirmary patients; and getting more and more enraged with the infatuation of his medical brethren, he presented a memorial to the managers of the Infirmary, expounding his views, that Infirmary appointments should be made either for life, or at least for a number of years, but unfortunately doing so in language, of which the following paragraph is but one specimen:— ‘Let us suppose that in consequence of this memorial, every individual member of the College of Surgeons shall to his own share, make forty times more noise than Orlando Furioso did at full moon when he was maddest, and shall continue in that unparalleled state of uproar for twenty years without ceasing. I can see no great harm in all that noise, and no harm at all to any but those who make it. Ninety-nine parts in the hundred of all that noise would of course be bestowed on me, whom it would not deprive of one hour’s natural sleep, and to whom it would afford infinite amusement and gratification while I am awake,’ etc. Such bitter writing was not, however, solely on one side. On another occasion, by the consent of the Royal College of Physicians, ‘A narrative of the conduct of Dr James Gregory towards the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh’ was published, which opens with this ominous paragraph, ‘It is with great pain, that the Royal College of Physicians, not a numerous, but hitherto, they trust, a very respectable society, find themselves compelled to come before the public with a narrative of their internal dissensions. The intemperate and injurious conduct of one of their members however has now made this a matter of necessity. Like other collections of individuals, they have had their dissensions and disagreements, but till very lately they were always conducted with the temper and the language of gentlemen, and were begun and ended within the walls of the College. Dr James Gregory has introduced a new style and a new jurisdiction.’