author
John Gregory
1724–1773
A Scottish Enlightenment physician and moral writer, he became known for bringing medicine, ethics, and everyday human feeling into the same conversation. His work helped shape ideas about medical conduct and polite society in the eighteenth century.
1 Audiobook
A Father's Legacy to His Daughters
by John Gregory
About the author
Born in Aberdeen in 1724, he came from a notably scholarly family: his father was a professor of medicine, and his grandfather was the mathematician James Gregory. He studied at Aberdeen, Edinburgh, and Leiden, then worked both as a physician and as an academic.
He held posts in Aberdeen before moving to Edinburgh, where he became professor of the practice of physic at the university. Alongside his medical work, he wrote on ethics, taste, and behavior, and he is especially remembered as a physician who believed medicine should be guided not only by knowledge but also by sympathy, judgment, and moral responsibility.
His best-known writings include works on a father's advice and on the duties and qualities of a physician, which remained widely read after his death in 1773. Today he is often seen as a distinctive voice of the Scottish Enlightenment, linking scientific practice with questions of character and humane conduct.