The Consultation Letters of Dr William Cullen (1710-1790) at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh

该项目将为英国历史上最重要的医学通信档案之一创建一个可公开访问、可搜索的在线电子版本。化学家和内科医生威廉·卡伦（1710-1790）是欧洲启蒙运动中最有影响力的医学学者、实践者和作家之一。库伦出生于拉纳克郡，在格拉斯哥大学接受艺术教育，在成为一名全科医生和讲师之前，他曾是一名船上的外科医生。1740年，他被格拉斯哥大学授予医学博士学位，1744年至1755年间，他在那里讲授化学、生理学和医学植物学。1755年，他来到爱丁堡大学，先后担任化学、医学（理论与实践）和“本草”（药理学）的教授。卡伦也是爱丁堡皇家学会的创始成员，重要医学教科书的作者，大卫·休谟、亚当·斯密、约瑟夫·布莱克和本杰明·富兰克林的同事。在他漫长而杰出的学术生涯中，卡伦主要通过与国际病人和医生（通常是以前的学生）交换咨询信来维持私人执业。这些信件的时间可以追溯到1764年到1790年，共有5794封书信，由爱丁堡皇家医师学院（RCPE）保存，卡伦曾担任该学院的院长。这个档案特别有价值，因为我们经常有双方的通信；卡伦不仅保留了他收到的信件，而且在很多情况下，他还保留了他的回复副本（口授给抄写员）。从1781年4月1日起，他开始使用他著名的同事詹姆斯·瓦特发明的复印机。这是一种印刷机，将原件放在一张特别浸渍了墨水和醋溶液的薄复写纸上。这些副本——当时装在衬纸上——特别脆弱，但数字化将确保其内容的长期保存。记者们从苏格兰、英格兰、爱尔兰以及国外各地撰稿，包括安特卫普、鲁昂、热那亚、柏林、加的斯、马德拉、纽约和新奥尔良。病人包括主要的贵族、牧师、商人和女性家庭成员，也包括种植园奴隶和“爱丁堡织布工约翰·特恩布尔”。詹姆斯·博斯韦尔代表垂死的塞缪尔·约翰逊写了这封信。有些信件涉及非医疗事项，包括个人、专业、科学、政治、哲学和文学方面的思考。这个档案的重要性已经得到了专业医学历史学家的认可，但是，尽管它为学者、教师和公众提供了潜在的丰富资源，但档案的规模和当前的布局一直受到抑制。那些研究过档案的学者对规模问题发表了评论，特别是在没有详细的清单将收到的信件与卡伦的回复联系起来的情况下。数字版本不仅提供页面图像、准确的转录和学术注释，而且还可以使用诸如“日期”、“发送者”（性别、职业地位等）、“发布地点”、“患者”（性别、职业等）、“症状”、“疾病”、“诊断术语”、“文学和哲学典籍”等搜索词来导航文本。该数据库将通过一个附有用户指导的信息网站提供。它将由格拉斯哥大学在其人文先进技术和信息研究所的技术支持下长期维持，并作为拟建的医学人文研究所的一部分。卡伦信件的版权归RCPE所有。所有介绍、编辑和指导材料的版权归格拉斯哥大学所有。

This project will create a publicly accessible, searchable on-line electronic edition of one of the most important archives of historic medical correspondence in Britain. The chemist and physician William Cullen (1710-1790) was one of the most influential medical scholars, practitioners and authors of the European Enlightenment. Born in Lanarkshire and educated in the arts at Glasgow University, Cullen served as a ship's surgeon before becoming a general practitioner and lecturer. He was awarded an M.D. by Glasgow in 1740, and between 1744 and 1755 he lectured there on chemistry, physiology and medical botany. He moved to Edinburgh University in 1755 where he successively held the chairs of chemistry, medicine (theory and practice), and 'materia medica' (pharmacology). Cullen was also a founding member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the author of important medical text-books and an associate of David Hume, Adam Smith, Joseph Black and Benjamin Franklin. Throughout his long and distinguished academic career, Cullen maintained a private practice largely conducted through the medium of consultation letters which he exchanged with an international circle of patients and physicians (often former students). This body of correspondence dating between 1764 and 1790 and consisting of about 5,794 letters, is held by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (RCPE) to which Cullen once served as president. This archive is of particular value because we often have both sides of the correspondence; Cullen not only kept his incoming letters but in many instances he also kept copies of his replies (dictated to an amanuensis). From 1 April 1781 he made use of a copying machine invented by his famous associate James Watt. This took the form of a press into which an original was placed against a sheet of thin copy paper specially impregnated with ink and a vinegar solution. These copies - mounted at the time on backing paper - are particularly delicate, but the long-term preservation of their contents will be assured by digitisation. Correspondents wrote from throughout Scotland, England and Ireland as well as places abroad, including Antwerp, Rouen, Genoa, Berlin, Cadiz, Madeira, New York and New Orleans. The patients range from leading aristocrats, clergyman, merchants - and female family members - to a plantation slave and 'John Turnbull, an Edinburgh weaver'. James Boswell writes on behalf of the dying Samuel Johnson. Some letters include non-medical matters including personal, professional, scientific, political, philosophical and literary reflections. The importance of this archive has been recognised by specialist medical historians, but while it offers a potentially rich resource for scholars, teachers and the general public the sheer scale and current layout of the archive has been inhibiting. Those scholars who have examined the archive comment on the problem of scale, especially when there is no detailed inventory readily linking the incoming letters with Cullen's responses. A digital edition will not only provide page images, accurate transcriptions and scholarly annotations but also enable the navigation of the text using such search-terms as 'date', 'sender' (gender, professional status, etc), 'place of posting', 'patients' (gender, profession etc), 'symptoms', 'diseases', 'diagnostic terminology', 'literary and philosophical allusions' etc. The database will be made accessible through an informative website with user-guidance. It will be sustained in the long-term by Glasgow University with the technical support of their Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute and as part of a projected Institute of Medical Humanities. Copyright of the Cullen letters rests with the RCPE. Copyright of all introductory, editorial and guidance material rest with Glasgow University.