CULLEN, WILLIAM no) , Scottish physician and medical teacher, was born at Hamilton, Lanarkshire, on April 15, 1710. He began his medical career as apprentice to John Paisley, a Glasgow surgeon, and then went to sea as a ship's surgeon. On his return home in 173 2 he practised for a short time, then studied at Edinburgh university, and afterwards practised at Hamilton and Glasgow. He lectured on a variety of subjects in Glasgow before he went to Edinburgh in 1756 as joint professor of chemistry.
On the death of Robert Whytt (I 714-66), the professor of the institutes of medicine, Cullen accepted the chair, at the same time resigning that of chemistry. In 1773 Cullen was appointed pro fessor of the practice of physic, and continued to lecture until a few months before his death, which took place on Feb. 5, 179o. His chief works were First Lines of the Practice of Physic (17 74 ) Institutions of Medicine (177o); and Synopsis Nosologicae Medi cae (1785), which contained his classification of diseases into four great classes—(i) Pyrexiae, or febrile diseases, as typhus fever ; (2) Neuroses, or nervous diseases, as epilepsy; (3) Cachexiae, or diseases resulting from bad habit of body, as scurvy; and (4) Locales, or local diseases, as cancer.
The first volume of an account of Cullen'.s Life, Lectures and Writ ings was published by Dr. John Thomson in 1832, and was re-issued with the second volume (completing the work) by Dr. W. Thomson and Dr. D. Craigie in 1859.