University of Glasgow

UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

 
Part of the Library and University Services

Douglas Papers

image displayed here is from DF31 (miscellaneous skeletal drawings)

The medical and scientific papers of Dr James Douglas (1675-1742), F.R.S., Physician Extraordinary to Queen Caroline, and mentor of William Hunter. Bequeathed in 1783 as part of Hunter’s library. The manuscripts include medical case records, anatomical, botanical and zoological studies (with important material on the Guernsey Lily and a corpus of drawings and engravings of the rhinoceros). There is abundant material on an 18th-century fraud, the case of Mary Toft of Godalming, who claimed to have given birth to a litter of rabbits. An interest of a completely different kind is reflected in a series of manuscript English, French, Latin and Greek grammars, and in a copious index to the works of Horace.

 

Finding aids and descriptions

  • Some records available via the online Manuscripts Catalogue (type MS Hunter D in call number box to browse through item descriptions of entries currently available)
  • C.Helen Brock, Dr James Douglas’s papers and drawings in the Hunterian Collection, Glasgow University Library: a handlist (Glasgow, 1994).
  • C.Helen Brock, James Douglas, 1675-1742, F.R.S.: an exhibition of books and manuscripts (Glasgow, 1975).
  • C.Helen Brock, "The rediscovery of James Douglas", The Bibliotheck, 8 (1977), pp. 168-176.
  • Kenneth Bryn Thomas, James Douglas of the Pouch and his pupil, William Hunter (London, 1964). Includes an annotated catalogue of the Douglas Papers, now superseded by C.H.Brock’s handlist.