Dissertatio inauguralis, de nephritide vera: Quam annuente summo numine, ex auctoritate Reverendi admodum viri, Gulielmi Robertson [...] Ad diem 26 Augusti, hora locoque solitis.

Bookseller Notes

The published doctoral dissertation, in Latin, of one who later made an important contribution to Georgian medical quantification by his analysis of the spa waters of Bath. Within a decade of passing the viva for the present work, William Falconer (1744-1824) set up in Bath and was elected to the Bath Hospital. Along with his contemporary Sir John Floyer, Falconer became well-known as a balneologist; he conducted research into natural springs and their impact on chronic conditions such as gout and rheumatism.'Though greatly esteemed, William Falconer was not a popular man. As the nineteenth-century commentator, R. E. M. Peach, observed: 'He was too proud and too independent to stoop to the arts of his profession [and] had a peculiar brusqueness of manner, which has been sometimes referred to as the Falconer temper' (ODNB).