Treatise on Opium

The Edinburgh surgeon-apothecary and physician George Young was an empiric who emphasised observation, practical experience and a sceptical approach to evidence in medicine. He was an early member of the Rankenian Club, a group of young intellectuals whose ideas were to be at the heart of Scottish Enlightenment thinking. Young certainly influenced his pupil Robert Whytt, who went on to make important contributions to the understanding of nerve and muscle function.