Alston, Charles, 1683-1760 (physician and botanist)
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 2 Collections and/or Records:
Notes of lecture entitled "A Few Observations upon Materia Medica" given by Professor Charles Alston, taken down by Henry Blegborough
Notes of lecture on "A Few Observations upon Materia Medica" given by Professor Charles Alston, taken down by Henry Blegborough, 1754.
Notes of lectures by Charles Alston, with bookplates of Alexander Russell
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.