McCulloch One Name Study

Dr. James was born in 1574 and illustrates the wandering Scot, gifted but poor, who had to live by his wits, and sought his fortune abroad. There is some reason to believe that he can be identified with the James McCullo who matriculated M.A. at Edinburgh in 1588 and became a Minister of the Word. Throughout life the two brothers do not seem to have been parted: both became Ministers and James probably gave up that calling when his brother resigned his charge in 1595. The pair next turn up at Basel University, where they were inscribed as medical students in 1598. In 1602, then at the age of 28, he took his degree in medicine at Leyden: it was then mainly a matter of chemistry and alchemy. It is not known whether he went with his brother to the court of the Emperor Rudolf prior to 1612, but both brothers were asked to teach at the University of Pisa, James to teach medicine and look after the physic garden. Both brothers were called on to resign in 1617, and in the same year James published a book of Latin poems at Florence. Both returned to Scotland and both became physicians to James I. James survived his brother only a year, being dead in 1623. He was heir to his brother but was never infeft in the estate of Myretoun.