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Alston, Charles, 1683-1760 (physician and botanist)

 Person

Staff Only

Dates

  • Existence: 1683 - 1760

Biography

Charles Alston was born at Eddlewood (now part of Hamilton). He was educated in Glasgow, and then went to Leyden in the Netherlands to study medicine under Hermann Boerhaave (1668-1738). There he met Dr. Alexander Monro, primus (1697-1767). Together, on their return to Edinburgh, they revived medical lectures at the University with Alston being appointed Lecturer in Botany and Materia Medica. He was also Superintendent of the Botanic Garden. Alston published various medical papers and an index to the plants in the Botanic Garden in Edinburgh. In hisTirocinium Botanicum Edinburgense(1753), he attacked the Linnaean system of classification. Dr. Charles Alston died on 22 November 1760.

Found in 4 Collections and/or Records:

Notes of lecture entitled "A Few Observations upon Materia Medica" given by Professor Charles Alston, taken down by Henry Blegborough

 Fonds — Volume Dk.5.12
Identifier: Coll-2192
Scope and Contents

Notes of lecture on "A Few Observations upon Materia Medica" given by Professor Charles Alston, taken down by Henry Blegborough, 1754.

Dates: 1754
Found in: University of Edinburgh Library Heritage Collections

Notes of lectures by Charles Alston, with bookplates of Alexander Russell

 Fonds
Identifier: Coll-1910
Scope and Contents

Three volumes of notes of lectures given by Charles Alston, entitled 'A treatise on the materia medica ... from the lectures of Charles Alston, M.D., Fellow of the College of Physicians and Professor of Botany at Edinburgh. 1733'. 183 x 165 mm, rebound. They bear the armorial bookplate of Alexander Russell, M.D. It is possible that this is the Alexander Russell that studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, and graduated in 1779.

Dates: 1733
Found in: University of Edinburgh Library Heritage Collections

Notes of Lectures on Materia Medica by Charles Alston

 Fonds — Volume Dk.7.1
Identifier: Coll-2214
Scope and Contents

Lectures on materia medica and "methodus praescribendi" by Charles Alston, Edinburgh 24 April 1736. Printed rules of the Belfast Medical Library (Ulster Medical Society) February 1829, pasted inside upper board.

Dates: 1736
Found in: University of Edinburgh Library Heritage Collections

Treatise of the Materia Medica

 Fonds
Identifier: Coll-1127
Scope and Contents The bound manuscript volume begins: ' A treatise of the Materia Medica in which the Virtues of all the Simples of the three Kingdoms are truly described and they have been fully demonstrated by the accurate Observations of many truly celebrated Authors and particularly of the learned Dr. Charles Alston Professor of the Materia Medica and Botany in the University of Edinburgh and Reg. Prof. Botan'. The text in the manuscript volume is organised into the following...
Dates: 1745-1747
Found in: University of Edinburgh Library Heritage Collections

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