IT was in this week in November 1844 that Scotland lost one of its cleverest sons. John Abercrombie died on November 14 in that year, rightfully regarded as the finest physician in the land and a philosopher of note.

In many ways Abercrombie was a genuine product of the Scottish Enlightenment in that he was a “Lad o’Pairts” equally at home discussing moral philosophy and medicine – he made a significant contribution to progress in the latter science and is known to many as the father of neuropathology, the study of diseases of the nervous system.

Indeed he has the ultimate medical accolade of having a disease named after him, namely Abercrombie’s Degeneration, which he was the first to describe.

The son of a clergyman in Aberdeen, the Rev George Abercrombie of East Church, John Abercrombie was born on October 10, 1780, and was educated at the local grammar school and then at Marischal College in the city’s university, before moving to Edinburgh University – which was then the foremost medical education institute in the world.

He was just 22 when he gained his doctorate in medicine in 1803, and after a brief spell completing his studies in London he began to practise his profession in the capital.

It is standard practice now but back then Abercrombie quickly gained a reputation for listening to his patients at length and taking his time with a diagnosis – he was nicknamed the man of silence because of this habit.

Abercrombie soon became recognised as possibly the finest doctor in the city, and his practice proved very popular with the wealthy and well-to-do.

Abercrombie had been brought up as a devout Christian – he gave long service as an elder in the Kirk – and he spent a great deal of time working with the poor people of Edinburgh, becoming a senior medical officer at the Royal Public Dispensary, where he devised a system of having medical students assigned to different parts of the city so that they could gain first-hand knowledge of working with the sick while helping to treat them.

He also had the honour of becoming senior surgeon in the New Town Dispensary which opened in Thistle Street in 1815.

Yet he failed in his application to become Professor of Medicine at Edinburgh University in 1821, the town council who then made such appointments being sceptical about his radical belief in listening to patients. The same year saw him elected to the Royal College of Surgeons, so his colleagues obviously appreciated what he was doing.

Abercrombie married the daughter of one of the richest men in the city, and together they had seven children, all girls. His wife’s wealth enabled him to study more and he found himself drawn to write articles on his studies of the brain and nervous system which he began to publish in 1816.

These articles were drawn together in two medical textbooks which were eventually published in 1828.

His Researches on the Diseases of the Intestinal Canal, Liver and other Viscera of the Abdomen was a classic of its kind, but his main work, Pathological and Practical Researches on Diseases of the Brain and Spinal Cord, made his name throughout the medical world as it virtually founded the science of neuropathology.

A close friend of, and doctor to, Sir Walter Scott, it was most probably on the great writer’s recommendation that Abercrombie was appointed the King’s Physician in Scotland, the highest honour that a doctor could earn at that time.

His reputation spread far and wide – Oxford University gave him an honorary degree and his old college in Aberdeen made him rector. In his home city he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and he later became its vice-president.

As if having one full career was not enough, Abercrombie had long studied philosophy, and in 1830 he published his Inquiries concerning the Intellectual Powers and the Investigation of Truth, which was followed three years later by The Philosophy of the Moral Feeling. Both were very popular in their day.

Always a keen student of the Bible, Abercrombie became more and more interested in religious topics and became the “go to” man in Edinburgh for those who wished to learn more about the moral nature of humanity – his personal library had hundreds of books on these subjects.

He wrote a series of essays that explored these religious and moral topics and in 1835 he published them in a volume called Elements of Sacred Truth for the Young, which was a best-seller. So, too, was his book The Man of Faith: or the harmony of Christian faith and Christian character.

There then followed one of those baffling events which you often find in the lives of Enlightenment figures.

For in 1840, Abercrombie broke with the Church of Scotland for reasons that have never been truly explained and was not reconciled before his death from a burst coronary artery in 1844.

Though he is mostly forgotten now, Abercrombie was a huge influence in his lifetime. He is honoured by having his portrait that was painted by Francis Croll in the National Portrait Gallery in London.