Portrait of: William Cullen
By: Valentine Green
After: William Cochrane
Date: 1772
Style: Mezzotint
Dimensions: 27.8 x 36.7 cm
William Cullen (1710-1790) was a distinguished medical practitionerand lecturer born in Hamilton, Lanarkshire. He was educated at Glasgow Universityand spent time at the University of Edinburgh where he became a founding memberof the Royal Medical Society in 1734. He taught at Glasgow and Edinburgh Universitiesand gave clinical lectures at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. Cullen was a popularand natural teacher devoted to demonstrating medicine and chemistry to hisstudents. One famous Scottish practitioner included in Cullen’s listof students was William Hunter.
Edinburgh was a prestigious centre for medicine in this period. The RoyalCollege of Surgeons of Edinburgh, the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, along with the University, and Royal Infirmary, made Edinburgh a highly desirableplace for medical experts to practise, teach, and study. This meant that competitionwas incredibly fierce and the standard was extremely high. Cullen and his studentHunter had a plan to make Glasgow a competitor to Edinburgh’s excellentmedical facilities, but this never came into fruition.
