| Description Of Item | This section contains volumes of lectures by James Hamilton the younger. The first four volumes are titled 'Heads of Lectures on the Theory and Practice of Midwifery by J H junior 1793/4'. According to an unattributed note in the original manuscripts catalogue James Hamilton the younger did not lecture in obstetrics until 1798 at the earliest. However, in 'The History of Scottish Medicine', John Dixon Comrie, when describing Alexander Hamilton's foundation of the Edinburgh General Lying-In Hospital in 1793, writes 'Attendance on this institution and instruction of students there was carried out by his son, Professor James Hamilton for 40 years'. These lectures may therefore have been given by James Hamilton as a result of his new responsibilities at the Lying-In Hospital. The initials on the title page are undoubtedly his, and the fourth volume, which is dated after the supposed start of his lecturing, is described as the 'fourth department of the course' thereby linking it to the previous three. On the basis of this evidence they have been moved from the Alexander Hamilton collection.
The first four volumes have been annotated, particularly volume 4. |