Writing to Dugald Stewart in June 1789. Thomas Jefferson enthused that as far as science was concerned, 'no place in the world can pretend to a competition with Edinburgh'.Yet, despite similar encomiums down the years, the role of the natural sciences and medicine in the Scottish Enlightenment is still neither generally appreciated nor fully understood. This collection of ten essays by leading scholars in the field is the first to provide a comprehensive overview of the place of scientific and medical enquiry in Scotland during the period 1690-1815. Each chapter presents new research in order to reflect upon previous interpretations and to suggest fresh perspectives on the relationship between science and medicine and culture and society in eighteenth-century Scotland.