{{Short description|Scottish physician (1719–1813)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=February 2022}} [[File:Francis Home (1719-1813).jpg|thumb|Francis Home by David Allan.]] '''Francis Home''' FRSE FRCPE (17 November 1719 in Eccles, Berwickshire – 15 February 1813) was a Scottish physician, and the first Professor of Materia Medica at the University of Edinburgh,<ref>Home, W. E. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2101851/?page=1 ''Francis Home (1719–1813), First Professor of Materia Medica in Edinburgh'']. ''Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine'' 21.6 (1928): 1013.</ref> known to make the first attempt to vaccinate against measles, in 1758.<ref name="Waterston">{{cite book|last1=Waterston|first1=Charles D.|last2=Macmillan Shearer|first2=A.|title=Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002: Biographical Index|url=http://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp1.pdf|accessdate=19 April 2015|volume=I|date=July 2006|publisher=Royal Society of Edinburgh|location=Edinburgh|isbn=978-0-902198-84-5|archive-date=19 September 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150919152306/https://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp1.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="Yale">{{cite journal|last=Enders|first=J. F.|date=December 1961 – February 1962|title=Vaccination against measles: Francis Home redivivus|journal=Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine|publisher=Yale University|volume=34|issue=3–4 |pages=239–60|pmid=13890171|pmc=2605051}}</ref> In 1783 he was one of the founders of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.<ref>{{cite book|title=Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002|date=July 2006|publisher=The Royal Society of Edinburgh|isbn=0-902-198-84-X|url=https://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp1.pdf|access-date=6 November 2016|archive-date=24 January 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130124115814/http://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp1.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref>
== Biography == Francis Home was the third son of John Home, an advocate residing at Eccles, Berwickshire.
He received his education at Duns Grammar School. He was then apprenticed to Dr Rattray, a surgeon in Edinburgh.<ref>{{cite book|title=Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002|date=July 2006|publisher=The Royal Society of Edinburgh|isbn=0-902-198-84-X|url=https://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp1.pdf|access-date=6 November 2016|archive-date=24 January 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130124115814/http://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp1.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref>
From 1742 to 1748 he served as surgeon of dragoons in Flanders in the Seven Years' War,<ref name="Waterston" /> studying at Leyden University during the intervals of the campaigns. Leaving the army, he graduated with an MD University of Edinburgh in 1750, with a treatise on intermittent fever, and became a fellow of the Edinburgh College of Physicians.
After graduation, Home worked as a physician in Edinburgh, from 1749. After practising medicine for some years at Edinburgh, and obtaining in 1757 a gold medal for an essay on the principles of agriculture, given by the Edinburgh Society for the Improvement of Arts and Manufactures. He was appointed in 1768 the first professor of materia medica in the University of Edinburgh, the subject being then dissociated from botany. He held this post till 1798,<ref name="Waterston" /> and as one of the clinical professors of medicine at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary experimented on the actions of several novel drugs, which he introduced into practice.
Home served as president of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (1775-7) and as president of the Physical section of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1789–96). In 1784 Home was elected a member of the Harveian Society of Edinburgh and served as president in 1794.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://wellcomecollection.org/works/ww4e59xv|title= A Record of the Edinburgh Harveian Society|last=Watson Wemyss|first=Herbert Lindesay|publisher=T&A Constable, Edinburgh|year=1933|language=en}}</ref> He was a founding member of both the Royal Medical Society and of the Select Society.<ref name="Waterston" />
He was the father of James Home FRSE (1760-1844), Professor of Materia Medica at the University of Edinburgh.
== Work == Home was an important figure in Edinburgh during the Enlightenment. His 1756 essay "Experiments on Bleaching", which won a gold medal was awarded by the trustees for the improvement of manufactures in North Britain, was translated into French and German. It was also an early presentation of the chemical principles underlying plant nutrition.
As a professor he speculated somewhat rashly, but carefully treated the physical characters and mode of administration of drugs. His 'Principia Medicinæ' was a valuable work in its day, and was used as a text-book by several continental professors.
Home was also the first to call attention to croup as a distinct disease in his tractate on the subject, which Dr. Squire, in Reynolds's 'System of Medicine,' 1866, i. 236, terms a 'careful and most philosophical inquiry,' deciding the dependence of the symptoms on pathological changes in the larynx and trachea.
==Selected publications== * ''Dissertatio de Febre Intermittente'', Edinburgh, 1750, 4to; republished in Smellie's ''Thesaurus Medicus'', 1778. * ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=UWNZAAAAcAAJ An Essay on the contents and virtues of Dunse-Spaw],'' Edinburgh, 1751 * ''[https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25659014M/Experiments_on_bleaching Experiments on Bleaching]'' Edinburgh, 1756, * ''[https://archive.org/details/principlesofagri00homeiala The Principles of Agriculture and Vegetation],'' Edinburgh, 1757; 3rd edition, 1759; French translation, Paris, 1761; German translation, Berlin, 1779. * ''Principia Medicinæ,'' Edinburgh, 1758; 3rd edition, 1770. * ''[https://archive.org/details/b30785558 Medical Facts and Experiments],'' Edinburgh, 1759. * ''An Inquiry into the Nature, Cause, and Cure of the Croup,'' Edinburgh, 1765; French translation, 1810, by F. Ruette. * ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=YwBalLzTa0gC Methodus Materiæ Medicæ],'' Edinburgh, 1770. * ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=ltJEAAAAcAAJ Clinical Experiments, Histories, and Dissections],'' Edinburgh, 1780; 3rd edition, London, 1783.{{sfn|Bettany|1891}}
==References== {{Reflist}}
;Attribution {{DNB|first=George Thomas|last=Bettany|wstitle=Home, Francis|volume=27|pages= }}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Home, Francis}} Category:1719 births Category:1813 deaths Category:18th-century Scottish medical doctors Category:British Army regimental surgeons Category:British Army personnel of the War of the Austrian Succession Category:Enlightenment scientists Category:Scottish medical writers Category:Scottish soldiers Category:Scottish surgeons Category:Vaccinologists Category:People from Berwickshire Category:Leiden University alumni Category:Alumni of the University of Edinburgh Category:Academics of the University of Edinburgh Category:Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh Category:Founder fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Category:Members of the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh Category:Office bearers of the Harveian Society of Edinburgh Category:Members of the Harveian Society of Edinburgh Category:Presidents of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh Category:18th-century surgeons