ALEXANDER HUNTER: M.D. (1729-1809), physician born at Edinburgh in 1729, was eldest son of a druggist. He was sent to the grammar school at ten, and at fifteen to the university, where he remained until he was twenty-one, having devoted the last three years to medicine. He spent the next year or two studying in London, in Rouen (under Le Cat), and in Paris (under Petit), and on his return to Edinburgh graduated M.D. in 1753 (thesis, “De Canthardibus”). After practicing for a few months at Gainsborough, and a few years at Beverly, he was invited to York in 1763, on the death of Dr. Perrot, and continued to practice there with great success until his death in 1809. His first literary venture was a small tract in 1764, an “Essay on the Nature and Virtues of the Buxton Waters,” which went through six editions. The last appeared in 1797 under the name of “The Buxton Manual.” In 1806 he published a similar work on the “Waters of Harrowgate,” York.
