Stuart Threipland

Stuart Threipland MD, FRCPE (18 May 17161805) was a Scottish physician. He was the son of Sir David Threipland, the second baronet of Fingask and, like his father, was an active Jacobite. After qualifying MD from the University of Edinburgh in 1742 he became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (RCPE) two years later. In 1745 he joined Prince Charles Edward Stuart in the Jacobite rising. He became physician-in-chief to the prince and stayed with the army throughout the campaign. After the Jacobite defeat at Culloden in April 1746 he went into exile in France but was able to return to Scotland under the Indemnity Act 1747. When his father died in 1746 he succeeded to become de jure the third baronet of Fingask but was technically unable to use the title which had been forfeited by his father because of his support for the Jacobite cause. He practised as a physician in Edinburgh and was elected president of the RCPE in 1766. In 1783 he was able to buy back most of the family estates in Fingask and Kinnaird which had been confiscated from his father in 1715.

Early life He was born in Fingask Castle to Sir David Threipland, Bart. (1666–1746), second baronet of Fingask, Perthshire, and his wife Katharine (née Smythe). At the time the castle was occupied by Hanoverian troops, and his father was in hiding nearby. His father had been an active supporter of the 1715 Jacobite Rising, during which he had been captured by the government army but had escaped and gone into hiding. His family estates were confiscated, and he was stripped of his baronetcy. Stuart Threipland studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and in 1737 became one of the founder members of the Medical Society of Edinburgh, later the Royal Medical Society. He graduated as a Doctor of Medicine in 1742, and in 1744 he became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (FRCPE) and began practice as a physician in the city. When Prince Charles Edward Stuart raised his standard at Glenfinnan on 19 August 1745, he and his brother David joined his army. David Threipland died of a gunshot wound at the Battle of Prestonpans in September 1745. He was with the Jacobite army as they marched south as far as Derby, remaining with them on the retreat north into Scotland, and he was present at the Battle of Culloden. When Stuart Threipland died in 1805, Patrick, the eldest of their six children, inherited the baronetcy, and the title was formally restored in 1826 by Act of Parliament. The later provenance of the chest has been documented. Threipland donated it to the surgeon Alexander Wood (1725–1807), and his son Dr George Wood left it to a Dr John Smith. He presented it to the RCPE. When the chest was in use medicine was dominated by the theory of humours. This involved the use of purgatives, emetics, and enemas, and many of the preparations in the chest are intended to produce such effects. Most of the preparations are vegetable-based, but the increasing use of chemically based drugs in the mid-18th century is demonstrated by the presence of "borax, potassium acid tartarate, dilute sulphuric acid, calamine, zinc oxide and lead acetate". In addition to the drugs, there were compartments for mortar and pestle, scales with weights, scissors, forceps, spatula, suturing needles, paper, and pens.