ith the literature of the
Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, and Gaelic tongues. The _Bostan_ of Saadi
is said to have been one of his most favourite poems.

On the war breaking out in 1793, Dr Jackson--who, in 1791, had
published a valuable work on the fevers of Jamaica and continental
America--applied for employment as army-physician; but Mr Hunter,
the director-general of the medical department of the army,
considering none eligible for such employment who had not served as
staffer regimental surgeon, or apothecary to the forces, Jackson
agreed to accept, in the first instance, the surgeoncy of the 3d
Buffs, on the understanding, that at a future time, he should be
nominated physician as he desired. Mr Hunter, however, died soon
after this; and his promise was not fulfilled by the Board which
succeeded him in the medical direction of the army, and which
appears to have pursued Dr Jackson with uniform hostility.

Returning to England with the troops, it was offered to him to
accompany, in the capacity of chief medical officer, Sir Ralph
Abercromby's expedition against some of the West India islands; and
although no employment could possibly have been more agreeable to
his taste, he, much to Sir Ralph's chagrin, declined the flattering
proposal, on the grounds, that lower terms had been offered to him
than to another professional man. Nothing but a sense of
professional delicacy, it is plain, governed him in this
transaction, for he immediately afterwards embarked (April 1796) as
_second_ medical officer in another expedition to San Domingo.
During his abode in this island, he was unwearied in enlarging his
acquaintance with tropical diseases--observing the rule he had
followed in Holland of noting down by the patient's bedside the
minutest particulars of every case he attended, the effects of the
treatment pursued, and whatever else might shed light on the
intricacies of pathological science. He also gave a larger practical
operation to the scheme he had years before devised of amending the
dietaries of military hospitals.

After the evacuation of San Domingo in 1798, our physician paid a
visit to the United States, where he was received with signal
distinction, his reputation having preceded him. The latter part of
the year found him again at Stockton, publishing a work on
contagious and endemic fevers, 'more especially the contagious fever
of ships, jails, and hospitals, vulgarly called the yellow-fever of
the West Indie