Archives & Special Collections

Douglas Papers

The medical and scientific papers of Dr James Douglas (1675-1742), F.R.S., Physician Extraordinary to Queen Caroline, and mentor of William Hunter.

Bequeathed in 1783 as part of William Hunter’s library , the collection includes:

• medical case records
• anatomical studies
• botanical studies
• zoological studies

Highlights include:

• important material on the Guernsey Lily 
• a corpus of drawings and engravings of the rhinoceros
• abundant material on an 18th-century fraud, the case of Mary Toft of Godalming, who claimed to have given birth to a litter of rabbits

An interest of a completely different kind is reflected in a series of manuscript English, French, Latin and Greek grammars, and in a copious index to the works of Horace. 

How to find material in the Douglas Papers collection

• For a collection description, see MS Hunter D (click on list collection content for a list of  item descriptions of entries currently available); alternatively, use the manuscripts search
• C.Helen Brock: Dr James Douglas’s papers and drawings in the Hunterian Collection, Glasgow University Library: a handlist (Glasgow: 1994).
• C.Helen Brock: James Douglas, 1675-1742, F.R.S.: an exhibition of books and manuscripts (Glasgow:1975). Exhibition catalogue available in the Special Collections reading room.
• C.Helen Brock, "The rediscovery of James Douglas", The Bibliotheck, 8 (1977), pp. 168-176.
• Kenneth Bryn Thomas, James Douglas of the Pouch and his pupil, William Hunter (London: 1964). Includes an annotated catalogue of the Douglas Papers, now superseded by C.H.Brock’s handlist
• The Curious Case of Mary Toft (Book of the month: August 2009)