Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Millar, John (1733-1805)

by Gordon Goodwin

MILLAR, JOHN, M.D. (1733–1805), medical writer, born in Scotland in 1733, graduated M.D. at Edinburgh. He commenced practice at Kelso, but on being appointed, in August 1774, physician to the Westminster General Dispensary, he settled in Pall Mall, London, and became an active promoter of the Medical Society of London, instituted in 1773. He died on 25 Feb. 1805 in Shepherd Street, Mayfair (Scots Mag. 1805, p. 237). By his wife Isabella, sister of Admiral Brisbane, he had two sons (Burke, Landed Gentry, 1886, p. 211). John, the eldest, was a lieutenant in the English navy, but died at Revel on 29 May 1804 in command of a 74-gun ship in the service of the emperor of Russia (Gent. Mag. 1804, pt. ii. p. 784); the youngest, a ship-surgeon, was drowned in early youth at sea (Millar, Observations on the Change of Public Opinion, Pref. p. cxxviii).

Millar was an excellent physician, especially for women and children, but was eccentric and irritable. His chief works are:

1. ‘Observations on the Asthma and on the Hooping Cough,’ 8vo, London, 1769 (translated into French by L. Sentex, 8vo, Paris, 1808).
2. ‘Observations on the prevailing Diseases in Great Britain,’ &c., 4to, London, 1770; another edit. 1798. He announced some ‘Additional Observations’ on the same subject in 1777.
3. ‘Observations on Antimony,’ 8vo, London, 1774.
4. ‘A Discourse on the Duty of Physicians,’ 4to, London, 1776.
5. ‘Observations on the Practice in the Medical Department of the Westminster General Dispensary,’ &c., 4to, London, 1777.
6. ‘Observations on the Management of the Diseases of the Army and Navy during the American War,’ &c., 4to, London, 1783, partly in answer to ‘Observations,’ 1780, by Donald Monro, M.D. [q. v.]
7. ‘Observations on the Change of Public Opinion in Religion, Politics, and Medicine; on the Conduct of the War; on the Prevailing Diseases in Great Britain, and on Medical Arrangements in the Army and Navy,’ 2 vols. 4to, London [1804].

To Millar the elder Benjamin Rush, M.D., of Philadelphia, addressed his ‘Dissertation on the Spasmodic Asthma of Children,’ 1770, in which he acknowledges his obligations to Millar's ‘excellent treatise’ on the subject.

[Gent. Mag. 1805, pt. i. p. 384; Cat. of Libr. of Med. and Chirurg. Soc.]

G. G.