William Cullen was an 18th century Scottish physician and chemist.

His chief works were First Lines of the Practice of Physic; Institutions of Medicine (1710) and Synopsis Nosologiae Methodicae (1785). In the 1785 work he classified diseases into four major groups:

• Pyrexiae, or febrile diseases, as typhus fever
• Neuroses, or nervous diseases, as epilepsy
• Cachexiae, or diseases resulting from bad habit of body such as scurvy
• Locales, or local diseases, as cancer

Writings of William Cullen

Cullen William (1784). First Lines of the Practice of Physic Edinburgh: C. Elliot & T. Cadell.

Writings about William Cullen

Christie, JR (1994). Historiography of chemistry in the eighteenth century: Hermann Boerhaave and William Cullen. Ambix, 41 (1): 4–19. PMID 11616322.

Cramer, M. and De Morsier, G. (1976). Teachings of the physician William Cullen of Edinburgh (1712-1790) transcribed by his student physician Louis Odier of Geneva (1748-1817)]” (in French). Gesnerus 33 (3-4): 217–27. PMID 793940.

Crellin, JK (January 1971). “William Cullen: his calibre as a teacher, and an unpublished introduction to his A Treatise of the Materia Medica, London, 1773”. Medical History 15 (1): 79–87. PMID 4929623.

Doig, A, et al, eds, (1993). William Cullen and the Eighteenth Century Medical World , Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh University Press, 1993)

Dubois, J.C. (June 1985). Neuroses and practical medicine in the works of William Cullen (in French). Annales Médico-psychologiques 143 (6): 572–7. PMID 3909876.

Johnstone, R.W. (January 1959). “William Cullen”. Medical History 3 (1): 33–46. PMID 13632206.

McGirr E.M. (February 1991). William Cullen MD (1710-1790). Scottish Medical Journal 36, 1, 6. PMID 2031172.

McGirr E. and Stoddart W. (February 1991). Changing theories in 18th-century medicine. The inheritance and legacy of William Cullen. Scottish Medical Journal 36, 1, 23–6. PMID 2031170.

Risse G. B. (March 1973). William Cullen and child care. A 1788 letter. Clio Medica 8, 1, 65–7. PMID 4129567.

· Risse GB (1974). Doctor William Cullen, physician, Edinburgh: A consultation practice in the Eighteenth Century. Bulletin of the History of Medicine 48, 3, 338–51. PMID 4618142.

Stott, R. (June 1986). William Cullen and Edinburgh medicine: A reappraisal. The Society for the Social History of Medicine Bulletin 38: 7–9. PMID 11612030.

Stott, R. (April 1987). “Health and virtue: or, how to keep out of harm’s way. Lectures on pathology and therapeutics by William Cullen c. 1770”. Medical History 31 (2): 123–42. PMID 3550326.

Wightman, William (1990). Cullen, William. In C Gillespie (ed,) Dictionary of Scientific Biography, NY: Scribner’s.

William Cullen (1710-1790). JAMA 188: 388–9. April 1964. PMID 14114029.