John Hope was born in Edinburgh on 10 May 1725, the son of the surgeon Robert Hope. He held a private practice and was physician to the Royal Infirmary. In 1761 he became Professor of Botany and Materia Medica, King's Botanist for Scotland, and Superintendent of the royal garden. With Thomas Martyn he was among the first in Britain to teach the Linnaean system. In 1768 he was appointed Regius Professor of Medicine and Botany and established a new botanic garden north of Leith Walk, a predecessor of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.

Biography: John Hope

Adam Austin received his MD from the University of Glasgow in 1749 and trained at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary under Dr John Rutherford. Based mainly in Edinburgh, he was later appointed by the Army Commander-in-Chief to inspect and regulate overcrowded military wards after the Seven Years' War. He was also a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. Austin married a daughter of the 12th Lord Sempill.

Painting: Adam Austin

Thomas Young, son of George Young LRCSEd, was the third Professor of Midwifery at the University of Edinburgh and is generally regarded as the first to teach obstetrics formally. He founded the Lying-in Ward at the Royal Infirmary. Initially a surgical apprentice (completed 1751), he received his MD from the University of Edinburgh in 1761. He resigned his chair in 1780 and was later reappointed Joint Professor with Alexander Hamilton. Young died in Edinburgh in 1783.

William Butter was baptised in Orkney in 1726. He graduated MD at the University of Edinburgh in 1761 and later published on puerperal fever, whooping cough, fever and angina. Butter practised for some years in Derby before moving to London, where he died in 1805.

James Walker was born at Inverdovat near Newport-on-Tay, Fife. He studied at the University of St Andrews, receiving an MD in 1752. A Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh from 1764, he also became a Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians of London, where he appears in Munk's Roll to 1804. He served as a prison physician in Edinburgh and later in Jamaica. He married the novelist Lady Mary Walker and was father of Rear Admiral James Walker CB.

James Grainger was born in Berwickshire. He studied medicine in Edinburgh, apprenticed to a city surgeon, and served as a military surgeon before graduating MD at the University of Edinburgh in 1753. He became a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians of London in 1758. In 1759 he travelled to the West Indies to study botany and later settled on St Kitts, where he died in 1766.

Thomas Livingston, or Livingstone, earned his MD from Marischal College, Aberdeen in 1752, after being examined on the spot, and solving an Aphorism of Hippocrates and a case in Medicine. The same year, he became a physician at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, where he was the first to perform a lithotomy in the city. Livingstone held his position alone until 1769 when two assistants were appointed to support him. He was still in this position in 1783, though no further information about his life is available. Thomas was the father of William Livingstone, the fifth Professor of Medicine at Marischal College.

Also known as Thomas Livingstone.
 

Robert Petrie trained at the University of Edinburgh and received his MD in 1750 with the thesis 'De Morbilis'. He was the first Physician to Lincoln County Hospital, a position he held until at least 1783.

Andrew Wilson was born in 1718 and received an MD from the University of Edinburgh in 1749. He practised initially in Newcastle, later in London, where he became physician to the Welbeck Street Medical Asylum. He died in London in 1792.

James Lind was born in Edinburgh on 4 October 1716 to James Lind, a merchant, and Margaret Smelholme. He attended grammar school in Edinburgh and in 1731 was apprenticed to George Langlands, a surgeon. In 1738, without formal qualification, Lind joined the Royal Navy as a surgeon, serving until 1748. His most famous work, 'A Treatise of the Scurvy' (1753), presented his theories on its causes and treatment. He died in Gosport on 18 July 1794.

Blog: College Fellows: Curing Scurvy and Discovering Nitrogen

Biography: James Lind