John Yule

John Yule was born in 1762 near Dirleton, in Haddingtonshire. He studied medicine in Edinburgh gaining his MD in 1785. His dissertation was entitled 'Dissertation medica, inauguralis, de halitu cuticulari ... / Eruditorum examini subjicit'. After graduation he moved to Sheffield where he worked as a physician before returning to Edinburgh. He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in 1791. He had a keen interest in botany and among his membership were the Caledonian Horticultural Society and the Harveian Society. In 1818 he published 'Observations on the cure and prevention of the contagious fever now prevalent in the City of Edinburgh and its environs' regarding the typhus epidemic. Among his relatives were the orientalist Henry Yule and his great-nephew, the statistician George Udny Yule. Yule died at home, in York Place, Edinburgh in 1827.