Johann Gottlieb Walter was born 1 July 1734 in Königsberg, Prussia. He studied medicine in Königsberg before obtaining a medical degree from the Universitas Francofurtensis in 1757. He later studied under Johann Friedrich Meckel the Elder in Berlin and became a professor of anatomy there in 1774. His anatomical collection contained nearly 3,000 objects and was purchased by King Frederick William III of Prussia for the Anatomical Museum of the University of Berlin He died in Berlin on 4 January 1818.

George Baker, 1st Baronet, was born in Devon and was baptised there in 1723. He attended Eton College and King’s College, Cambridge. He obtained his MD from the University of Leiden in 1756. He was made a fellow of the Royal Society and was elected president of the Royal College of Physicians of London nine times between 1785 and 1795. Baker’s most significant research was on the subject of 'Devonshire colic', proving that it was not caused by acidity, as previously thought, but rather lead poisoning. Baker died in 1809.

Sir Benjamin Thompson was born in 1753 in Massachusetts. Thompson worked as a storekeeper in Salem before becoming apprenticed to a physician in Boston. He attended lectures at Harvard but never graduated. In 1772 his apprenticeship ended and he became a schoolteacher. In 1773 he was made a major in the second provincial regiment. In March 1776, when the British army withdrew from Boston, Thompson travelled to England. He conducted research on a range of electrical and mathematical projects, including lamps and stoves. His work on the nature of advanced heat was rewarded with a range of titles, including that of Count Rumford. He died at Auteuil, near Paris, in 1814.

Also recorded as Count Rumford.

Jenner was born 17 May 1749 in Berkeley to Rev. Stephen Jenner. His early medical education involved training under an apothecary and, later, physicians including John Hunter, with whom he trained as a private pupil, before he obtained his MD from the University of St Andrews in 1792. Jenner is best known for proving that vaccination against smallpox using cowpox successfully creates immunity, which he first documented in 1796. Jenner published three works on the vaccine from 1798-1800, which were translated into multiple languages. The vaccine had immediate importance in medical care and was adopted throughout the world as well as amongst the British army and navy. He died in Berkeley on 25 January 1823.

Profile: Edward Jenner

Matthew Baillie was born in Shotts, Lanarkshire on 27 October 1761 to Rev. Prof. James Baillie and Dorothea Hunter, sister of the anatomists William and John Hunter. In 1783 he was bequeathed control of William Hunter’s medical school, where he proceeded to teach until 1803. He was appointed physician to St George's Hospital in 1789 and additionally taught anatomy there. In 1799 he left these posts in order to devote his time to his private practice, which was hugely popular. In 1811 he became physician-extraordinary to George III. Published in 1793, his most significant work was ‘The Morbid Anatomy of Some of the Most Important Parts of the Human Body’, the first publication in English to treat pathology as a subject in its own right. He died in Duntisbourne, Gloucestershire on 23 September 1823.

Profile: Matthew Baillie

Gilbert Elliot, Lord Minto, was born in either 1650 or 1651 to Gavin Elliot and Margaret Hay. He opposed Charles II's rule, beginning with a successful challenge to the legality of a treason charge against his friend William Veitch. In 1685, he went to the Netherlands to join exiled nonconformists, acting as clerk to a group of Scottish rebels and raising money for the cause. Returning from the Netherlands, Elliot became an advocate in 1688 and was appointed a judge in the court of session in 1705, becoming Lord Minto. He represented Roxburgh in parliament from 1703. He died 1 May 1718.

John Arbuthnot was born in Arbuthnot, Kincardineshire, to Alexander Arbuthnott and Margaret Lammie. His date of birth is unknown, but he was baptised in 1667. He obtained an MA in Aberdeen in 1681 and obtained the first recorded MD from the University of St Andrews in 1696. Arbuthnot established his medical practice in London. He was also a prominent writer and satirist, known amongst other things for inventing the character John Bull. He died in 1735.

Painting: John Arbuthnot

Alexander Russell, who practised medicine in Elgin, dedicated 'Ane Essay of Medicin' to the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. In response, the College granted him honorary fellowship. He may have been the uncle of physician and naturalist Alexander Russell (1714–1768).

William Cockburn was born in 1669. A Scottish physician, he is noted for his remedy for dysentery, which became a staple treatment in the British Navy for 40 years. Educated at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Leiden, where he was influenced by Archibald Pitcairne, Cockburn became a licentiate of the College of Physicians of London in 1694 and served as a physician to the fleet. His notable works include 'Œconomia Corporis Animalis' (1695), which reflected mechanistic theories in medicine, and 'The Nature and Cure of Distempers of Seafaring People' (1696), based on his naval experience. Cockburn was also Jonathan Swift's doctor and later served as physician to Greenwich Hospital. He died in 1739 and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

George Cheyne was born in Methlick, Aberdeenshire in 1671/72 to James Cheyne. The name of his mother is not recorded. He attended Marischal College, Aberdeen, although he appears not to have completed his degree. Cheyne moved to Edinburgh before being granted an MD from King’s College, Aberdeen, in 1701. He then moved to London where he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1702. He failed to establish a medical practice there and returned to Scotland in 1705. After around ten years he returned to England, travelling regularly between London and Bath. In 1718 he moved permanently to Bath and wrote a series of medical studies which were particularly focused on diet, weight, exercise and melancholy. He died in Bath in 1743.