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The Continental Journeys of Andrew Duncan juniorby Malcolm NicolsonBorn in 1773, Andrew Duncan was the eldest son of a famous father. Andrew Duncan senior held the chair of the Institutes of Medicine in Edinburgh University from 1790 until 1821.1 A prolific author, Duncan senior also edited the pioneering medical periodical, Medical Commentaries.2 Physician to the King and the Prince of Wales in Scotland, founder of the Edinburgh Royal Public Dispensary and the Royal Edinburgh Asylum, Duncan was, at various times, President of the Royal Medical Society and the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. He remained a major figure within the Edinburgh medical establishment until his death in 1828. Andrew Duncan junior began his medical education in 1787 with a surgical apprenticeship.3 He later attended Edinburgh University, graduating with an M.A., in 1793, and then, in the following year, with an M.D. From 1791 he assisted his father with the editing of the Medical Commentaries, writing analyses of recently published books.4 After graduation, Duncan junior continued his education by travelling, at his father's expense and direction.5 He went first to London and then to many of the major medical centres of Continental Europe, including Göttingen, Vienna, Pavia, and Padua, returning to Scotland in 1796. In the next year he set out on another European journey, this time in the capacity of medical attendant to a Scottish nobleman. As a grateful and dutiful son, Andrew regularly wrote long letters home to his father. It is very fortunate that the bulk of this correspondence has survived.6 In the eighteenth century, there were no essential educational prerequisites to medical practice. Medical students could devise and select their own curriculum, according to what their financial resources would allow and what form of medical career they wished subsequently to pursue.7 As the travels of Andrew Duncan exemplify, the existence of this degree of educational freedom of choice enabled and impelled the ambitious young physician to travel abroad for some part of his medical education. But, as we shall also see, Duncan did not go to the Continent merely to increase his technical knowledge of medicine. He sought also to improve his general education, to learn European languages, and to make the acquaintance of eminent men. Duncan hoped, moreover, that his Continental experience would aid his career chances by enhancing his gentlemanly poise and social savoir-faire. Thus his journeys served Duncan both as post-graduate education and as finishing school.8 The market for medical services in the eighteenth century was an open and pluralistic one. By necessity, the successful practitioner was an entrepreneur.9 The Duncan letters shed light on how particular entrepreneurial strategies operated. A vital component of medical success was the effective exploitation of the support systems provided by family connections, patronage, scholarly and collegial acquaintance, and other sources of social obligation and mutuality. Secondly, individual entrepreneurship took place within an economy that was firmly centred upon household and family units.10 It is interesting to regard the Duncans, father and son, as being involved in a single economic enterprise, with the elder Duncan concerned, not just to provide for his son, but also to train and equip him to take his place in the Duncan family business of physicking, university teaching, journal editing, and medical power-broking.11 Furthermore Duncan did not travel merely as an individual and as a member of an eminent medical family. While abroad he acted as a representative of Edinburgh's medical school and its associated institutions. One must, of course, recognise the limitations of the Duncan correspondence as a historical source. It would, indeed, be a remarkable young traveller who provided his father with a full and candid account of his activities on the Continent. Robert Burns, who was fourteen years older than Duncan and who died when Duncan was abroad on his first journey, satirised the escapades of the affluent young Scotsman, who … maybe, in a frolic daft, The Continental tour, the poet noted, exposed the young traveller to many temptations and dangers, physical, financial and moral. Some suffered '... the consequential sorrows, Love gifts of Carnival signioras'.13 Of these and other personal experiences of the pathologies of travel, Duncan junior is, for whatever reason, silent. The letters often read, moreover, like the first draft of the account of his travels that Duncan intended to prepare for publication but never actually did. They are, in other words, structured throughout by both filial and literary conventions. Nevertheless, Duncan's letters provide us with interesting insights into why the eighteenth-century medical student travelled, what he did while he was aboard, and what personal and professional benefits Continental experience might bring. In LondonAndrew Duncan's first journey began in the autumn of 1794. He was accompanied from Edinburgh to London by his father. The Duncans stayed at the house of Mr Barclay, the well-known Scottish anatomist, and went visiting together.14 Duncan senior was thus able personally to effect the introduction of his son to many of the leading learned men of the capital. As a result the younger Duncan quickly gained access to London's medical, scientific and literary circles. He went to meetings of the Royal Society and the Medical Society, and made the acquaintance of such luminaries as Joseph Banks, Matthew Baillie, John Coakely Lettsom and Gilbert Blaine. Duncan junior enrolled for classes at the Great Windmill Street School, where he enjoyed Dr. Baillie's 'very excellent demonstrations'.15 In his first letters to his father, now returned to Scotland, we can see what was to be a recurring feature of their correspondence - the making of comparisons between the medical institutions Duncan saw on his travels and those he knew in Edinburgh. He routinely considered how experience of the former might complement the education to be had in the latter: I have now begun business in earnest at Windmill Street, so that from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. I have not a moment unemployed. But I find so much of benefit from it already that if another of your sons were to choose the same profession I should advise that he should spend his first winter in London. He would then be able to understand and derive infinitely greater advantage from the incomparable physiological lectures of Dr. Monro.16 Even when the Windmill School was closed, Duncan occupied his days with dissection and learning to make preserved specimens. He felt he was gaining skills that would be valuable to him later in his career - 'I hope to acquire as much of the art as will enable me hereafter to make a tolerable collection of comparative anatomy'.17 Human material was difficult to obtain but he appreciated that London was a good place to which to come to learn practical anatomy. Other aspects of medical education in the capital he found less attractive. He was disappointed in what he saw as a lack of opportunities for the study of clinical practice - '[e]xcept seeing operations nothing is to be learnt at the hospitals here'.18 He attended and addressed the student society, the Lyceum Medicum, but found it 'wonderfully inferior to our medical societies'.19 Little was done to provide educational facilities for medical students and their general level of culture and learning did not impress: There is nothing in the way of literature which I miss so much as the library of the Med. Soc. Students here have no access to books of value and are therefore, in general, extremely illiterate. The whole knowledge of the most learned of them consists in the origin and insertion of a few of the muscles or the course of the blood-vessels and nerves.20 Duncan was careful to reassure his father that his own educational endeavours were not being adversely affected by the prevalence of such philistinism. He was reading what medical books he could lay his hands on (without, of course, running the unnecessary expense of buying them for himself) and also improving his general accomplishments. He recorded that, one evening at Joseph Bank's house, he had heard a discussion 'amongst critics of polite literature' concerning 'the authenticity of some manuscripts of Shakespere [sic]', found among some old papers belonging to a Mr Ireland. Duncan expressed the urbane hope that Mr Ireland 'has not yet examined all his old papers, and that, like Chatterton, he may find as many as he chooses'.21 While in London Duncan assiduously cultivated the acquaintance of the learned men of the capital, not only in order to increase the social and educational value of his visit but also in preparation for further travel. Many of the men to whom he paid his compliments gave him letters of introduction to their academic colleagues on the Continent. As we shall see, this network of personal contact was to be crucial in enabling Duncan to fulfil his father's intentions as to how he was to spend his time abroad. He knew that the elder physician considered: ... my principal objects are to acquire the languages, get a knowledge of the medicine and literature and form acquaintances among the learned of each country ...22 In December 1794, however, Duncan received an offer that caused him to reconsider his plans. Dr Pearson, a friend of his father, suggested to Duncan that he had interest to get him a position on the medical staff of a London Hospital or, alternatively, as a hospital mate in the Army. Duncan promptly wrote to ask his father's opinion. Of the two possibilities, he evidently favoured the latter, which would entail a foreign posting and would not deny him the opportunity of learning German: The pay of a hospital mate is 7sch and 6d a day ... This, I think, would be sufficient to pay my expenses and at my period of life and in my profession to spend a few years without expense is certainly an object ... It is also the best field for acquiring experience that can possibly exist.23 His father, however, did not consider that, whatever its practical or financial advantages, a background in military surgery was quite what he had in mind for his eldest son and protégé.24 The Army scheme was quickly dismissed. By 4 January 1795 Duncan considered 'my objects in coming to London are pretty well attained, while the frost continues dissection is at an end and there is nothing else I can study here'.25 He had begun actively to look for a passage across to the Continent - an uncertain business since the Channel and the southern North Sea were still a theatre of war. In the meantime he had to discuss with his father the financial arrangements for his travels: I am afraid that my expenses on the continent will be more than you are aware of. I can find nobody here that spent less than £250 a year. But I shall endeavour as much as possible to avoid the society of Englishmen and to adopt the manners of the natives.26 One of the means by which Duncan hoped to repay the investment being made in his education was by writing about his Continental experiences: ... a work in German which I am impatient to be able to read is 'Travels thro' Italy chiefly with a view to the state of medicine in that country'. A similar work in English with respect of Germany as well as Italy would be of use. As far as I can I shall collect materials for such a one ...27 There was, in the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-centuries, a great demand for travel books and guides of all sorts. Charles Este, for example, recorded that he had sold the rights of his A Journey in the year 1793 before he had left England or opened a notebook.28 Duncan was, moreover, aware that appearing in the public prints was an important means by which a young physician could make his name more widely known and thereby improve his career prospects. While on his travels Duncan, as we shall see, gave much thought to publication as a means by which his foreign experience could advantageously exploited. In GermanyOn the 16th of March 1795, after many delays, Duncan sailed from Yarmouth to Hamburg. Shortly afterwards he travelled on to Brunswick. In both cities Duncan paid social calls on all the learned men to whom he had an introduction. He was so pleased with the warmth of his reception in Brunswick that he dared to depart from the itinerary laid out for him by his father, who had intended that he should travel directly to Göttingen: On Saturday I called upon Prof. Eschenburgh [sic] and came at last to a determination which I hope will not displease you, that of remaining here a month. I can live here at no great expense and I have the best opportunity of learning German. I have got a very good room and bed closet at 4 dollars a month. I dine with Prof. Eschenburgh, who is the only one of his family that can speak English and I get a lesson from him every day.29 Eager to cultivate the role of the scholarly connoisseur, Duncan was particularly concerned to view the cabinets of famous collectors. On a visit to Haldstedt, he: ... delivered a letter of introduction to Prof. Beireis [who] ... possesses collections in no less than eleven different branches. He began by showing me the very minute anatomical preparations of Lieberkuhn, reckoned the finest in the world ... I saw injections of the bone and enamel of the teeth, of the vessels of the liver and kidney, almost detecting nature in its process of secretion ...30 Duncan did not, moreover, confine his connoisseurship solely to the medical sphere. He cultivated a wider interest in natural history and philosophy: ... we called upon Hoffrath Ebel to see his collection, and got an admirable lecture of two hours upon petrifactions. I was never more pleased with a cabinet. He did not expose his specimens like a showman, but explained them like a philosopher ... the pride of his collection is a table of slate containing pentacrinites.31 He was also concerned to exhibit a gentleman traveller's taste in landscape, gardens and curiosities: At Cassel we ... made a party to go to the Landgraff's palace at Weisser Stein. Its situation is naturally beautiful but much improved by art. The house ... lies a little way up the side of a beautiful hill, whose surface is entirely converted into pleasure grounds. Artificial ruins and other buildings are thrown in with great taste, wherever they can please the eye most ... After we descended a little way we entered a grotto in the side of the building in which statues of Fawns, Nereids, etc. We were immediately surprised by most beautiful music and a hundred streams of water sprung up amongst our feet.32 However, evidently anxious not to give his father the impression that he had altogether abandoned his Scottish proprieties and given himself entirely over to luxury and sensuality, Duncan concluded: Altho at first the whole struck me as the most stupendous work of man I ever saw, yet I could not help regretting that so much labour and money should have been wasted in a manner which benefits no living soul.33 In late June or early July, Duncan moved on to Göttingen. He arrived with letters of introduction to, among others, Arneman, Wrisberg, Feder, Richter, Blumenbach, Lichtenberg, Gmelin, Persoon, Meyer and Stromeyer.34 All these men knew his father by reputation; many had met Duncan senior in London or in Edinburgh. It is not surprising therefore that, despite the language barrier, Duncan very quickly accomplished an entry into Göttingen's learned community. He proudly wrote to tell his father of dinners with Blumembach and Wrisberg, of teas and suppers with Arneman, Gmelin and Osiander. By early August, Duncan was enjoying himself so much in Göttingen that he again became reluctant to follow his father's itinerary: If I were to pass this winter in Italy, I must set out very soon and I have not yet by any means acquired so much of the language that I could trust my accuracy of translation, so much as to allow the public to judge of it and I flatter myself with the hopes that a good knowledge of German and a great deal of industry will enable me to repay my whole journey.35 He hoped to be allowed to spend the winter of 1795-96 attending classes at the University. He suggested to his father that, apart from the direct educational benefit of such a period of study, his improved knowledge of German would enable him to prepare a revised and annotated translation of Johann Peter Frank's System einer vollständigen medicinischen Polizey (Complete System of Medical Police).36 Duncan's hope that his father would look favourably upon this plan would seem to have been a very reasonable one. Quite apart from any financial benefits, such a scheme would have complimented and developed the elder physician's own interest in medical police. It was in this same year, 1795, that Duncan senior began to devote a portion of his teaching effort in Edinburgh to lectures on medical jurisprudence.37 Duncan outlined to his father the schedule of lectures and hospital visits he intended to follow in Göttingen. But, as we have already seen, Duncan's foreign 'post-graduate' education did not consist solely of attending classes and clinics. His twenty-second birthday, in late August, provided him with occasion to reflect about his progress toward becoming both a learned physician and an accomplished gentleman. He took, as he put it, 'a retrospective view of my education, of my life': My knowledge of anatomy is much increased and in the German language, I have entered upon an inexhaustible field of improvement ... My time, I believe, can be better employed than in attempting to regain a knowledge of Greek or ... Latin. But I must not let any time be lost in learning to speak French ... and in increasing my practical knowledge of medicine, particularly in the forms of prescriptions and doses of medicines. The less necessary accomplishments, which I wish I possessed, are to draw well, to play tolerably various games at cards, and to ride well. For this last alone I cannot blame myself ... But if you will permit me to offer you any advice, do not let your other sons be defective in that art, for the sake of a few half crowns. Many a one it might have saved me.38 He then returned to the question of where he should spend the winter. Friends had informed him that the University of Pavia was 'in disorder'. The Italians had opposed Johann Peter Frank's innovations and the distinguished professor had decided to remove himself to Vienna. Due to the political situation, travel in southern Europe was difficult and exorbitantly expensive. Besides 'there is no book published in Italy, which is not translated into German in six months':39 This has almost determined me to pass the winter in Germany, which I had already begun to regret the thoughts of quitting, just as I was beginning to understand the language and before I had learnt it sufficiently to prevent me from forgetting it in a year or two.40 But 'in this as in all other cases' the final decision remained with his father.41 Duncan senior must have insisted on his original itinerary being adhered to. Duncan junior remained in Göttingen for only three months and, in September, he left to begin his journey to Italy.42 The first few letters in the Edinburgh collection of Duncan correspondence exemplify how an eighteenth-century student physician could construct his own education. But they also show us that Duncan was not wholly a free agent. The overall plan of his itinerary was not his to decide. Nor did he act only on his own behalf. Some of his time had to be devoted to the requirements of what I have called the 'Duncan family business'. He worked to consolidate his father's relationships with the Continent's learned men by conveying to them the elder Duncan's good wishes and by presenting them with complimentary copies of the Medical Commentaries or some other Edinburgh publication.43 In turn Duncan forwarded to his father compliments and sometimes letters, books or journals from the scholars he met. Duncan senior wished to keep up with European medical politics and was always eager for medical intelligence from the Continent. His son supplied him with up-to-date information about new publications and appointments so that notices of the latest events could be included in his journal. Duncan junior seems also to have spent a considerable time going through the catalogues of libraries and booksellers, sending back to his father detailed listings of the Continental medical literature. Another of Duncan's tasks was to buy books for his father and for some of his colleagues in Edinburgh. He was also engaged in this capacity by Edinburgh's Royal Medical Society. He also sought to appoint commercial agents in several of the major cities he visited - who, on behalf of Edinburgh University Library and/or the Medical Society, would buy and despatch the new Continental medical books as they appeared. In ItalyOn his way to Pavia Duncan visited Ratisbone, Vienna and Milan. Again he sought out all the learned men to whom he had letters of introduction and endeavoured to view whatever was of medical, philosophical or cultural interest. In Ratisbone he saw : ... what alone would have repaid me for my journey here, I mean the Museum of wax preparations belonging to the military surgical school ... It baffles all description and would be well worth young Monro's coming here to see.44 In Milan he called upon Dr. Locatelli and accompanied him on his visit to the 'great hospital', taking particular note of the clinical arrangements: [Locatelli] gave a short account of each patient to the students in Latin and the reports were kept in a kind of tabular form by two clerks. The last ward he visited was the clinical. Here the case of each patient was entrusted to some advanced student who took their cases in Latin, but he prescribes himself. After his visit he shewed me the hospital. The wards were in general remarkably clean, and completely free from smell: but what seemed to me most remarkable were the two large wards, each containing 360 patients.45 By November Duncan had reached Pavia. Here again he had a ready introduction to the eminent men of the University. Having presented several letters to Professor Brugnatelli, he was offered lodging in the professor's house. Duncan senior had also prepared the ground by writing to tell Antonio Scarpa to expect a visit from his son. The famous anatomist offered to help the young Duncan if he wished to dissect. But, notwithstanding the cordiality of his immediate reception, Duncan found that his earlier misgivings about Pavia were quickly confirmed: At present I feel myself more awkwardly situated than I was at any time in Germany, for though Scarpa has been in England and Brugnatelli translates English, yet neither of them converse in it, and I dislike extremely speaking bad French. I have also been obliged to employ a Frenchman as my language master, for there is none here who understands English ... It is now too late to change, but I am afraid we have been wrong in choosing Pavia for the situation of my longest stay in Italy, because the language, even of the better class of people, is very bad ... so that I shall be almost deprived of the advantage of living in the country where the language is spoken.46 The University of Pavia was indeed, as Duncan had feared, in turmoil. The prospect of invasion by the French armies loomed. The students were disaffected. The vacancy created by the departure of Johann Peter Frank had been filled temporarily by his son, Joseph, 'but I perceive that he is thought too young and unequal to the charge'.47 Of the remaining professors only Scarpa was held in much esteem. Duncan came to the conclusion that Italian medical scholarship was moribund: With regard to the medicine of the Italians, I shall be able to learn their hospital treatment. But of medical literature they have very little. I have asked many of the students to inform me of the late works of reputation published, and they give the names of translations ... I have not heard of a single author of reputation in the lines of theoretical or practical medicine. Pavia is, however, the best university in Italy, and the opportunities for dissection are superb.48 Apart from Brugatelli and Scarpa, the faculty were inhospitable. He was not invited to the other professors' houses. He explained to his father: You need not be astonished at the want of attention in the Pavians. Hospitality is not a part of the Italian character and £100 a year are not the means. Besides the Professors are independent of the students and do not seek after popularity.49 Duncan occupied himself exploiting the anatomical facilities, preparing his 'annotated translation of Frank', and attending clinical classes. Here again his perspective was a comparative one: The management of the clinical wards is very different from that at Edinburgh. When a new patient comes in any student takes care of him. When Frank comes to that patient, that student examines him and is assisted by Frank who then asks what he thinks the disease to be, what his opinion of the prognosis, and what he would prescribe. Having approved or rejected the student's opinion, he gives a clinical lecture upon the disease. Next visit the student reads a Latin history of the case, the future reports he writes at his leisure, and after the disease is finished, gives the complete history to Frank. At each visit he also writes his prescription on a tabular paper which hangs at each bed.50 By January 1796, Duncan was on the move again. He set out on what was virtually a Grand Tour of Italy, visiting first Bologna, Sienna, Rome and Naples, before returning north to Leghorn, where he arrived in early April.51 The letters he wrote during this part of his Continental excursion make it abundantly clear that his intention in visiting Italy was not solely to increase his technical knowledge of medicine. Indeed once he gets south of Bologna, discussion of medical matters virtually disappears from his correspondence. As he wrote to his father: You will think it strange that I have attended so little to medicine since I have been in Italy. I think it strange myself and cannot well account for it. All that I observed of the Roman hospitals was looking into one of the men's wards at S. Spirito, as I passed one day. At the door was hung a printed list of the lectures, one of which was to be given every Sunday night by a different person. I intended to have heard one but forgot to go.52 He reserved his energies for such activities as touring the architectural and artistic sights of Rome and spectating, in a sceptical Protestant manner, at the celebrations of Holy Week. At Leghorn Duncan had a friend in residence, Mr Grant, who could introduce him to local society. Duncan set out wholeheartedly to enjoy himself - so much so that he had to apologise to his father for the length of time he remained there: You will perhaps think that I have made my stay here too long, as it is not a literary place. But I can only say that I have seen more of the Italians here than in all the rest of Italy. I have been at conversaziones, concerts and plays in the Italian fashion and at dinners, tea and cricket in the English manner. Every night ... I have drunk tea at Mr Grant's, who ... is never without visitors. After tea, we either go to the play, conversation, or concert. In the play house there are no operas at present, but comedies and tragedies ... They are in general sad stuff, but as each box is a separate little company, it is not of much consequence. When we enter the theatre we go to the pit to see what ladies are in the boxes and then go up and spend the evening with them.53 The natives were, he had discovered, 'more sociable than in other parts of Italy'.54 Eventually Duncan dragged himself away from Leghorn. He travelled on, through Pisa, Padua and Florence to Venice, arriving there on the first of May - just in time to see the Doge celebrate the marriage between the city and the sea. Again he had something to apologise to his father for - he had not fulfilled the parental instruction to make the acquaintance of the learned men of Padua. He was handicapped, he explained, by having no letters of introduction: To tell the truth, the reception I have meet with from Italian philosophers, to whom I carried the best recommendations, was such that I could not prevail upon myself to wait upon any of them entirely without introduction ...55 Moreover his plan to return to Pavia had had to be abandoned because the French had invaded and the university was closed. Duncan was forced to 'idl[e] my time away here in Venice'.56 The first of June found Duncan in Vienna and, once back across the Alps, he took up the study of medicine seriously again: ... as I wished to attend particularly to the hospital, I fixed my residence in the suburbs, although in most respects very inconvenient on account of its great distance from the town. In the mornings at eight Frank goes round the clinical ward and at nine gives his practical lecture ... He speaks a great deal at the bedside of the patient, generally in Latin, but sometimes in German, and as was to be expected from him much to the purpose ... I have seen the lying-in part of the hospital, which is clean, and everything very naturally conducted.57 Later in the same month Duncan visited the hospitals in Prague. Duncan now felt able to offer to his father the following comparative generalisation: The medical practice of Italy and Germany is, in general, not so simple as ours, which on the whole Continent is dignified with the name of empiric, because you do not give medicines as resolvents, inspissants, attenuants, &c., and do not talk of a bilious-phlegmatic-pituitous pain in the big toe. I must, however, except from this remark the Franks, whose practice is extremely plain and simple. These, however, tried no new remedies, and in their choice they were principally directed by cheapness and efficacy.58 He had evidently fulfilled part of his father's plan. He had learned something of Continental medical practice. A Second Trip to ItalyDuncan's letter from Prague, dated June 22, 1796, is the last one from his first journey that is extant in the Edinburgh collection. The next letter dates from July 19, 1797. It was written in London and relates to Duncan's second Continental trip. There are several indications in the correspondence of the first journey that it had long been a part of Duncan senior's plans for his son that he should travel abroad again - this time as a medical attendant. Duncan junior had initially been rather sceptical as to the feasibility of this venture: We may still keep the travelling scheme in view, but I hardly think it will take place. My youth will be an almost insuperable objection and I should be afraid to trust myself with the care of an invalid.59 Nevertheless his father's plan had come magnificently to fruition. He had succeeded in getting Duncan junior engaged by the Earl of Selkirk to travel to Florence to take care of his son, Lord Daer, and accompany him back to Britain.60 This must have been a considerable coup for the Duncan family business since the Earl of Selkirk was one of Scotland's leading noblemen. Duncan originally intended to use his outward trip to fill an important gap in his education, both medical and gentlemanly - to visit Paris.61 Lord Selkirk was however unable to obtain a passport for him to travel through France and he was thus forced to go via Germany and Switzerland. Duncan had reached northern Italy before he discovered that Lord Daer would have no need of his services. He had died before Duncan had left Britain. The principal purpose of his journey being thus tragically removed, Duncan was again free to devote his time in Italy to the pursuit of his own ends. He had, by this time, begun to practice physic on his own account and he was evidently proud to tell his father that he was occasionally consulted by expatriates or Grand Tourists. But, as on his first visit, the improvement of his practical or theoretical knowledge of medicine was not Duncan's only, nor indeed his major, preoccupation while in Italy. He had, as he put it, 'no precise object in view except general improvement'.62 His father had again cause to chide him for not making the acquaintance of Italy's learned men. But a second experience of the country had not improved Duncan's opinion of Italian scholarship: You will naturally imagine that I am now busy studying medicine. I would do it, [word indecipherable] I found Italian authors that retained my attention. But it is inconceivable how trivial they are in general, how hypothetical and how ignorant of the laws of nature and the science of reasoning. In the branches of juridical and political medicine I have not met with a single book.63 Nor, although he still posed as a man of taste, was he as interested as he had been in scholarly connoisseurship: I have lost all taste for the study of pictures, statues, etc. I think it absurd to be in raptures with a copy when we can have the original before our eyes.64 Duncan's lack of enthusiasm for Italian medicine and art should not however be written off as merely a manifestation of a young man's pleasurable idling. Duncan knew that humanistic learning, knowledge of medical theory, and clinical experience were not the only personal accomplishments to which the would-be physician should aspire to gain on his travels: I believe if you were on the spot to judge you would rather have me keep company with genteel people here, both natives and strangers, than with the literati. I am convinced that it will in the end be more to my advantage by improving my manners and knowledge of the world, articles essential to success in my profession.65 In other words Duncan consciously determined to use his time in Italy more to improve his social grace and acumen rather than to increase his professional or decorative knowledge. He sought, by making the acquaintance not of the learned but of the polite, to acquire skills that would enable him to mingle easily with the class of person from which he would later be seeking professional patronage. In September, he repaired again to his friend Mr. Grant in Leghorn, where he could not 'keep company with the literati, for there are none',66 but where there were excellent opportunities for pursuing a broader, more social form of education: The second night I supped with Mr Filippi, the third with Mr Armario, and the last with Mr Fluddart, in their different boxes at the theatre. These entertainments were overall as elegant as possible and hilarity prevailed universally. Champaign [sic] is indeed a magic draught. Its influence is irresistible. It strips the most reserved prude of her mask and affectation cannot stand its fumes.67 After several weeks pleasantly and, no doubt, instructively socialising in Leghorn, Duncan moved to Florence, and on to Pisa, for some more of the same. In January he returned to Leghorn. In November 1797, he was still hoping, in vain as it turned out, 'that in Spring I may take in Paris on my way home'.68 But he was aware that his travelling and his education were approaching their end. He must now think seriously about how he was to earn his living: When once returned I hardly expect that any offer will be made sufficient to tempt me abroad again. On the contrary, it is time to determine, in some measure upon my future plans. Whether it will be better for me to fix at Edinb, or elsewhere. My profession is of that kind that for years yet, I must rely upon your support, for although by writing I might earn something yet it is but uncertain and interferes much with laying the basis for a more certain income. I feel myself without many things necessary for enduring success in the struggle for riches and advancement.69 Duncan's doubts were however soon resolved. His father commanded him to make great haste in the latter part of his journey and he arrived back in Britain in June 1798,. The surviving correspondence does not specify any reason for this urgency other than it related to 'so important a business'.70 From the context the letters provide, it is, however, reasonable to assume that the younger man's professional advancement was involved. At this time Duncan senior was engaged in an attempt to persuade the Town Council to create a new chair of medical jurisprudence at Edinburgh University. Shortly after his return to Edinburgh, Duncan junior was made a Fellow of the College of Physicians of Edinburgh and a physician to the Royal Public Dispensary, an institution which, as noted above, his father had founded. Duncan junior began to assist his father in editing their new periodical venture, the Annals of Medicine. However, the initiative to found the new chair did not succeed, on this occasion. Back in Edinburgh, perhaps waiting until something more substantial came his way, Duncan junior began to write. He began to publish the results of a series of investigations into the chemistry of pharmacologically active substances.71 He was also developing research interests in anatomy, following the approved Continental clinico-pathological model.72 In 1803, Duncan published a new edition of the Edinburgh New Dispensatory, in which he displayed his knowledge of European scientific innovation. The edition incorporated, for example, an 'introductory Epitome of Modern Chemistry'.73 A review in Nicholson's Journal acknowledged the range of his expertise, concluding that 'Dr Duncan appears to have availed himself of every thing in the field of modern discovery, or in the best foreign Pharmacopoeias, that was consistent with the plan of his work'.74 Duncan junior's work on the Dispensatory should be seen as another aspect of the family business - Duncan senior had been responsible for three earlier editions of the work. Two years after its publication, the mantle of journal editorship was formally passed from father to son, Andrew Duncan junior becoming founder editor-in-chief of the successor to the Annals, the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal. With his wide acquaintance among the leading medical men of Britain and Europe, his working knowledge of more than one European language, and his experience of anatomical, clinical and chemical research, Andrew Duncan junior was very well qualified to be the editor of a medical journal. Under his guidance Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal became the leading British medical periodical, publishing a wide variety of research papers and providing authoritative reviews of the latest scientific and clinical developments taking place in Britain and Europe. In 1807, the Duncans manufactured and seized another important opportunity for career advancement, fulfilling an ambition born in the previous decade. Duncan senior managed to persuade his friends in the new Whig administration to act upon his scheme for instituting a chair of 'Medical Jurisprudence and Medical Police' in Edinburgh.75 Duncan junior became the first holder of the new professorship. He never published his long-promised translation of Frank's System but his study of its contents provided him with the basis of his course of lectures. In addition to his professorial duties, Duncan was appointed, in 1809, to the salaried position of Librarian to the University, a post for which his knowledge of Continental libraries and the international book trade equipped him well.76 Andrew Duncan's chair in Medical Jurisprudence was held in the Faculty of Law. But, in 1819, he transferred to the Medical Faculty to occupy the chair of the Institutes of Medicine jointly with his father - another success for the family business. In 1821, Duncan junior was elevated to sole possession of the chair of Materia Medica. By this time the Duncans could be said to have unequivocally succeeded in their joint enterprise - the son, like the father, had become a leading member of the Edinburgh medical establishment.
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