the surgical wards of the Aberdeen infirmary. His medical writings consisted solely of memoirs, of which the most important were ‘On the Human Placenta’ (‘London Med. Gazette,’ 1848, &c.; reprinted Aberdeen 1858), ‘On Uterine Hæmorrhage,’ ‘On a Case of Dislocation of the Knee-joint,’ &c. These memoirs show, along with much learning, a strong tendency to paradox—e.g. Adams obstinately refused to believe that the sounds of the fœtal heart could be heard by auscultation. He was an excellent naturalist, being well versed in the botany and ornithology of Scotland, especially of Deeside.
After Adams's death a monument was erected to his memory at Banchory by public subscription. It is a granite obelisk, bearing a Latin inscription by Professor Geddes of Aberdeen. His bust in marble, by Brodie, is in the university of Aberdeen, having been presented by his son, Dr. Leith Adams.
Adams's reputation in his own special field of scholarship is very high. His translations are good and generally accurate, though not brilliant and not always elegant. His notes are less valuable for critical insight than for their richness in accessory learning. The achievement of so much good work, under such difficulties, cannot but be regarded as evidence of a very remarkable character.
Besides the works mentioned above, Adams wrote numerous papers and reviews in medical journals.
[Aberdeen Herald, 2 March 1861; Scotsman, 27 Feb. and 9 March 1861 (notice copied in Med. Times and Gazette, 1861, i. 292); MS. communications from family and other friends.]
ADAMS, GEORGE (1698?–1768?), translator, in prose, of Sophocles, dramatic poet, and probably a polemic and apologist, was sometime a fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge (Cooper, New Biographical Dictionary), where he took his degrees of B.A. and M.A. respectively in 1719 and 1735 (Graduati Cantabrigienses, 1787). Between these two dates he published the work by which he is best known, entitled ‘The Tragedies of Sophocles, translated from the Greek. With Notes Historical, Moral, and Critical,’ 2 vols., 8vo, London, 1729. At this time he was either beneficed or otherwise established in the immediate neighbourhood of Kimbolton Castle, for, in the dedication of his ‘Sophocles’ to William, fifth earl and second duke of Manchester, with whom he was on terms of intimacy or acquaintanceship, he speaks of the joy diffused by his grace's presence amongst those ‘who lived near the place of his usual residence,’ and of the ‘sadness and discontent’ which sat ‘upon every brow’ at his absence when, in fulfilment of his duties as a lord of the bedchamber, he was called away to ‘shine as a star in its proper sphere near the person of his majesty.’ The context of these passages shows the author to have been an ardent protestant and a devoted partisan of the Hanoverian succession. In addition to his translation of Sophocles, Adams wrote what Mr. D. E. Davy calls ‘The Heathen Martyr’ (MS. Additions to Graduati Cantabrigienses, 1823), and what the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ for October 1746, p. 560, registers amongst the books and pamphlets published during that month as ‘The Life of Socrates: an Historical Tragedy,’ 8vo, London, 1746. It is not unlikely that Adams was the author of ‘An Exposition of some Articles of Religion, which strike at the Tenets of the Arians and Socinians. Likewise at the Infidels, Romanists, Lutherans, and Calvinists. In several Sermons and Dissertations,’ 8vo, London, 1752. In a Latin dedication to Dr. Thomas Sherlock, bishop of London, the author of this work describes himself as having exercised his sacred office (sacro munere) in that diocese for a period of over twenty years. It is equally possible further to credit him with another volume, the identity of whose authorship with that of the ‘Exposition’ is generally accepted, by ‘George Adams, M.A.,’ entitled ‘A System of Divinity, Ecclesiastical History, and Morality. Collected from the Writings of Authors of various Nations and Languages, and from the noblest Doctors of the Christian Church,’ 8vo, London, 1768. The likelihood of the identity of the author of these two later works with the translator of ‘Sophocles’ suggested a question in ‘Notes and Queries,’ 3 March 1860; but the question has so far remained unanswered. Adams may have been the same with the Rev. George Adams who was preferred to be prebendary of Seaford on 24 Aug. 1736, and of Wittering on 28 Oct. following, both in the cathedral church of Chichester, and who resigned the former in 1736–7, and vacated the latter in 1751–2 (Le Neve's Fasti Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ (ed. Hardy, London, 1854), ii. 274–5). Of course the ‘System of Divinity’ may have been of posthumous publication; but if the foregoing surmises be correct, Adams probably died not before 1768, the year of the issue of his latest work, when he was about seventy years of age.
[Dedication of the Tragedies of Sophocles, 1729, and of An Exposition, &c., 1752; Gent. Mag. Oct. 1746; Watt's Bibliotheca Britannica.]
