Buchan, WILLIAM, physician, was born in 1729 at Aneurin, Roxburghshire, and studied divinity and medicine in Edinburgh. He settled in Sheffield, but removed to Edinburgh about 1766, where he practised and lectured on natural philosophy. His Domestic Medicine, perhaps the most popular book of its kind ever issued, appeared in 1769. Its success was great and immediate, 19 large editions, amounting to 80,000 copies, being sold during Buchan's lifetime. He removed to London in 1778, where he died, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Buchan was also author of works on Cold Bathing (1786), Dict (1797), and Offices and Duties of a Mother (1800).
Buchan, WILLIAM
Chambers's Encyclopaedia, Volume 2: Beaugency to Cataract, p. 508
Source scan(s): p. 0519