DR. JOHN BURNS.
Among those who perished in the wreck of the Orion, was Dr. John Burns, Professor of Surgery in the University of Glasgow, aged about eighty years. Dr. Burns held a distinguished place in the medical world, for at least half a century, as an author and a teacher. He was a son of the Rev. Dr. John Burns, for more than sixty years minister of the Barony parish of Glasgow, who died about fourteen years ago, at the age of ninety. He was originally intended to be a manufacturer, and in his time the necessary training for this business included a practical application to the loom. A disease of the knee-joint unfitted him for becoming a weaver, and he turned his attention to the medical profession, winch the neighboring university afforded him easy and ample means of studying. He early entered into business as a general practitioner, but his ambition led him very soon to be an instructor. In 1800, he published Dissertations on Inflammation, which raised his name to a high position in the literature of his profession. In 1807, he published a kindred volume on Hemorrhage. In the mean time he had turned his attention to lecturing, and he continued to give, for many years, lectures on midwifery. His observations and experience on this subject he offered to the world in The Principles of Midwifery, a work which has run through twelve editions, and been translated into several of the continental languages. It is very elaborate and valuable, and as each succeeding edition presented the result of the author's increasing experience, it became a standard in every medical library. Its chief defect is a want of clearness in the arrangement, and sometimes in the language. In 1815, the crown instituted a Professorship of Surgery in the Glasgow University, and the Duke of Montrose, its chancellor, appointed to it Mr. Burns, a choice which the voice of the profession generally approved. The value of the professorship might average 500l. yearly.
As a professor, Dr. Burns was highly popular. He had a cheerful and attractive manner, and was fond of bringing in anecdotes more or less applicable, but always enlivening. His language was plain and clear, but not always correct or elegant. In personal appearance, he was of the middle size, of an anxious and careworn, but gentlemanly and intelligent, expression of countenance. In 1830, he published Principles of Surgery, first volume, which was followed by another. This work is confused, both in style and arrangement, and has been very little read, but it did credit to his zeal and industry, for he had now acquired fame and fortune, and had long had at his command the most extensive practice in the west of Scotland. John Burns, the younger, had written and published a work on the evidences and principles of Christianity, which was extensively read, and went through many editions. His name was not at first on the title-page, but that it was the production of a medical man was obvious. He gave a copy to his father, who shortly after said, "Ah, John, I wish you could have written such a book!" Dr. Burns has many friends in the United States, who were once his pupils. One of the most eminent of them is Professor Pattison of the Medical Department of the New York University, in this city.