[1] He received his medical education at the University of Edinburgh, and on 10 December 1810 entered the Royal Navy as an assistant surgeon, and in that capacity saw service on the shores of Spain, where the war was then raging.
[1] After 1817 he made four voyages to New South Wales as surgeon-superintendent of convict ships, in which upwards of six hundred criminals were transported to that colony without the loss of a single life.
To the profits arising from this book he added his early savings while in the Navy, and expended them in an attempt to open up a large tract of land in Australia, which he then fondly regarded as his adopted country.
[1] His well-earned reputation at the Admiralty, however, speedily procured him employment, and on 22 October 1830 he was appointed to the Tyne, served on the South American station until January 1834, and had opportunities of observing the effects of tropical climates on European constitutions.
[1] In addition to the work above mentioned he wrote two others: On the Motions of the Earth, and on the Conception, Growth, and Decay of Man and Causes of his Diseases as referable to Galvanic Action, 1834; and Hints for Australian Emigrants, with descriptions of the Water-raising Wheels in Egypt, 1841.