| Description Of Item | Oil on canvas, 127 x 104 cm
Born at Pinkerton, near St Andrews, Andrew Duncan graduated with an MA from St Andrews in 1762, and studied medicine in Edinburgh under William Cullen, John Gregory, Alexander Monro secundus and Joseph Black. As a student he was president of a student medical society on five successive occasions, for which in later years he was instrumental in obtaining a Royal Charter.
In 1768 he sailed to China as surgeon on the East India Company's ship 'Asia'. He graduated with a MD in 1769. As a young doctor he witnessed the miserable death of Robert Fergusson, the poet, in a common madhouse and he determined to improve the lot of such patients. When he was President of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in 1790 he was able to use his influence to gain support for the establishment of an Asylum for the Insane in Edinburgh. The Royal Dispensary in Richmond Street was the result of this remarkable man's concern for the poor in Edinburgh.
Artist: Henry Raeburn |