John Moultrie (1729-1798)

John Moultrie (1729-1798) was the first US-born graduate of Edinburgh University, qualifying M.D in 1749.

He was born in South Carolina to a Scottish father, James Moultrie (1702-1771), himself a graduate of Edinburgh University, who was both a general practitioner and an indigo planter.

Moultrie arrived in Edinburgh after a perilous 32-day voyage, towards the end of which his ship was chased and almost captured by a Spanish vessel,

He studied Anatomy under Alexander Monro ''primus'' (1697-1767) and the Institutes of Medicine and Practice of Physic under John Rutherford (1695-1779) and Andrew Sinclair (c1698-1760), and Theory of Medicine under Robert Whytt (1714-1766). He was among the first students to benefit when Rutherford introduced clinical lectures into the curriculum in 1748.

Moutrie graduated in 1749 with a thesis on yellow fever: 'De Febre maligna biliosa Americae'. His name appears on the printed roll as 'Joannes Moultrie, ex Carolina Meridionali provincia'. Moutrie's thesis was soon recognized as the most authoritative study of yellow fever to date. A further edition was published in Longosalissa, and it was translated into French and German. Moultrie had already survived three epidemics of yellow fever which had ravaged South Carolina in his youth.

He then returned to the United States, where he practised his profession in Charleston, grew cotton, owned slaves, and eventually rose to become Governor of East Florida. He fought on the the British side during the American War of Independence which pitted him against his two brothers, both patriots. When Florida was returned to Spain following the defeat of the British forces, Moutrie went into exile in England where he died in 1798.

Moultrie was the first of 117 American students to graduate from Edinburgh's Medical School by the end of the eighteenth century.

Sources

• John Z. Bowers, 'The Influence of Edinburgh on American Medicine', in Medical Education and Medical Care: A Scottish-American Symposium, ed. Gordon McLachlan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), pp. 1-23.
• 'Letters from a Colonial Student of Medicine in Edinburgh to his Parents in South Carolina, 1746-1749', University of Edinburgh Journal, 4 (1930-31), 270-74.
• J. B. Morrell, 'Medicine and Science in the Eighteenth Century', in Four Centuries: Edinburgh University Life, 1583-1983, ed. Gordon Donaldson (Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 1983), pp. 38-52.
• Eleanor Winthrop Townsend, 'John Moultrie, Junior, M.D., 1729-1798, Royal Lieutenant-Governor of East Florida', Annals of Medical History, 3rd Ser., II (1940), 98-109.