Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jack, Gilbert
JACK, GILBERT, M.D. (1578?–1628), metaphysician and medical writer, born in Aberdeen about 1578, was son of Andrew Jack, merchant. After attending Aberdeen grammar school, he became a student in Marischal College. By the advice of Robert Howie, the principal, Jack proceeded to the continent, and studied first at the college of Helmstädt, and then at Herborn, where he graduated. Attracted by the high reputation of the newly founded university of Leyden, he enrolled himself a student on 25 May 1603 (Leyden Students, Index Soc., p. 53), and after acting as a private lecturer, he became in 1604 professor of philosophy. He at the same time diligently prosecuted his own studies, particularly in medicine, and proceeded M.D. in 1611. His inaugural dissertation, ‘De Epilepsia,’ was printed at Leyden during the same year. Jack was the first who taught metaphysics at Leyden, and his lectures gained him such celebrity that in 1621 he was offered the Whyte's professorship of moral philosophy at Oxford, then lately founded, but he declined it. He died at Leyden on 17 April 1628, leaving a widow and ten children. At his funeral on 21 April Professor Adolf Vorst pronounced an eloquent Latin oration. His portrait appears in vol. ii. of Freher's ‘Theatrum.’
Jack published:
- ‘Institutiones Physicæ,’ 12mo, Leyden, 1614; other editions, 1624, Amsterdam, 1644.
- ‘Primæ Philosophiæ Institutiones,’ 8vo, Leyden, 1616; other editions, 1628 and 1640, which he prepared at the suggestion of his friend Grotius.
- ‘Institutiones Medicæ,’ 12mo, Leyden, 1624; another edition, 1631.
[Paul Freher's Theatrum Virorum Eruditione Clarorum, 1688, ii. 1353; Vorst's Oratio Funebris; Icones ac Vitæ Professorum Lugd. Batav. 1617, pt. ii. pp. 29–30; Waller's Imperial Dict.; Evans's Cat. of Engraved Portraits, ii. 216; Granger's Biog. Hist. of England, 2nd edit., ii. 5; Anderson's Scottish Nation.]