Physician and botanist. Born Edinburgh 1725. Educated locally, read medicine from the age of 15 at Edinburgh Univ., then Paris 1748-9. M.D. Glasgow Univ., 1750. Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh 1752. Practised medicine in Edinburgh. Co-founder of the Select Society 1754. Professor of botany and materia medica 1761. King's botanist for Scotland 1761. Superintendent of the royal garden in Edinburgh 1761. Regius professor of medicine and botany 1768. Established the Royal Botanical Garden. President of the College of Physicians 1784. Died Edinburgh 1786.