!SOURCE: Rev. Thomas Whyte, AN HISTORICAL AND GENEALOGICAL
ACCOUNT OF THE BETHUNES OF THE ISLAND OF SKYE, Edinburgh, 1778,
reprinted London, 1893, by Alfred A. Bethune-Baker, reprinted by
ScotsPress, pp. 10-11.
Angus... likewise appeared as Doctor of Medicine. He was the second
Doctor Angus of the family. He got a liberal education, and wrote a
system of physic, entitled, The Lilly of Medicine, which he finished at
the foot of Montpelier, after he had studied physic twenty-eight years.
The system is yet extant in manuscript, and contians many curious
discoveries concerning the nature of Diseases, and their cures. It is in
the Irish character, and abounds with contractions. He designed it
wholly for the use of the Highlands. However it seems of no use in the
present age. None of his posterity since the death of Mr. John Bethune,
Minister of Braccadale, is able to read it. Nor could heindeed, without
the aid of one from Ireland, who knew well the Irish character, and the
contractions belonging to it. [Manuscript History of the Bethunes of the
Island of Sky.]
This second Doctor Angus, the fifth descendent in a male-line from
John Bethune fifth laird of Balfour, and Marjory third daughter of David
Boswel of Balmuto, had six sons. Ferquhard, John, Angus called the
strong, Ewan or Eugene, Neil, and Angus called the Fair, all handsome
stately men, more inclined to the military than to the gown, or the study
of physic, which none of them could be prevailed upon to pursue. And
this the M''Donalds and M''Leod''s took much amiss; they upbraided them as
degenerated from their forefathers, particularly Doctor Peter their first
predecessor in that country, who, though, as they said he had an estate
of his own in thesouth,yet for the good of mankind, especially the
inhabitants of that corner, he had taken up his residence among them.
This is the only hint we find in the manuscript account of the Bethunes
of Sky, that Doctor Peter might have been Pitlochy''s eldest son, or
succeeded to that estate by the death of an elder brother.