Cullen , William , 1710-1790 , physician

William Cullen was born in Hamilton, Lanarkshire, in 1710. He was educated at Glasgow University before moving to London. He became a surgeon on a merchant ship travelling to the West Indies, in 1729. He returned to London in 1730, and assisted an apothecary, before returning to Scotland in c 1732. He went on to study under Alexander Monro, primus, at Edinburgh Medical School in 1734-1736. He began to practice as a surgeon in Hamilton, in 1736. William Hunter was his resident pupil from 1737-1740. Cullen graduated from Glasgow in 1740. He was appointed Professor of Medicine at Glasgow University, in 1751, and Professor of Chemistry at Edinburgh Medical School, in 1756. Cullen was President of Edinburgh College of Physicians from 1773-1775, and was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, in 1777. He died in 1790.