MacCulloch, JOHN

MacCulloch, JOHN, geologist, born in Guernsey of a Scottish family on 6th October 1773, studied medicine at Edinburgh, and became assistant-surgeon to an artillery regiment. In 1811 he was employed by government in geological and mineralogical researches in Scotland; in 1820 he became physician to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, afterwards king of the Belgians; and in the later years of his life he was professor of Chemistry and Geology in the East India Company's military school at Addiscombe. He died at Penzance, Cornwall, 21st August 1835, in consequence of an amputation rendered necessary by a carriage accident. His most important works are a Description of the Western Islands of Scotland (1819); A Geological Classification of Rocks, with Descriptive Synopses (1821); A System of Geology, with a Theory of the Earth (1831); Malaria (1827); and The Remittent and Intermittent Diseases (2 vols. 1828).