Navy surgeon and later physician and male midwife. He was married firstly to Mary Carter (1730-1790), with whom he had a son, George Douglas (b. 1754). He married, secondly, Mary Sharpe Beauvoir (1753-1807).
In London, Douglas was physician to his sister-in-law, the author and bluestocking Elizabeth Carter and her circle, and later also practiced midwifery. He was Physician to the Charity for Delivering Poor Married Women and wrote Observations on an Extraordinary Case of Ruptured Uterus (1785).
After the death of his first wife, Douglas married the widow Mary Sharpe Beauvoir (1753-1807), a friend of Elizabeth Carter's. Mary's wealth allowed Douglas to retire, and they traveled together in Europe from 1792 to 1796. Unable to return through France due to political unrest, Douglas petitioned the French Directory1 for an exception and following their return to England, privately published his and his wife's journals as Notes of a Journey from Berne to England (1797).
From 1800, the Douglases lived at Ednam House near Kelso in Roxburghshire. Andrew Douglas died at Buxton on June 11th, 1806, during a journey from their home to London, following a short illness.
Boswell met Douglas during his first visit to London in 1760, and stayed with him for the first week of his 1762-3 stay in London. Later on, he was a frequent houseguest, and it was also Douglas who treated Boswell for Gonorrhea "by confining the patient to his room, rest, skimpy diet, medicines and bloodletting."2 It was on January 20, 1763, that Boswell was diagnosed with Gonorrhea after his affair with Louisa Lewis. One of the bloodlettings is mentioned on January 30, 1763.
During his stay with them in November 1762, Boswell quickly tired of Mrs Douglas who apparently talked too much3. He seems to have warmed towards her later on - on January 8, 1763, he apparently met her at the Goulds' where the two of them "chatted away with much vivacity".