Abstract
Mark Akenside was one of a number of eighteenth-century men who rose to prominence as both a poet and a doctor. He was born in 1721 in Newcastle upon Tyne, and in 1738 attended Edinburgh University, initially to prepare for becoming a Presbyterian clergyman, but switching after a year to the study of medicine. During his student career, he wrote a long philosophical poem, The pleasures of imagination, which became one of the most successful poems of its time, going through four editions within a year, and a further four during his lifetime (not counting various pirated editions emanating from Scotland and Ireland). Apparently using the proceeds from this, he travelled to Leiden to complete his MD, as many Edinburgh students did at this date, returning in late May 1744, when he tried, unsuccessfully, to establish himself as a physician.1
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