Life

He was apprenticed to an apothecary, and afterwards practised medicine as an apothecary in London. He was a Dissenter and a Whig, a friend of Dr. Richard Mead

Richard Mead

Richard Mead was an English physician. His work, A Short Discourse concerning Pestilential Contagion, and the Method to be used to prevent it , was of historic importance in the understanding of transmissible diseases.-Life:The eleventh child of Matthew Mead , Independent divine, Richard was born...

, and an enemy of Dr. John Woodward

John Woodward (naturalist)

John Woodward was an English naturalist, antiquarian and geologist, and founder by bequest of the Woodwardian Professorship of Geology at Cambridge University...

. He studied mathematics and the philosophy of Isaac Newton

Isaac Newton

Sir Isaac Newton PRS was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, who has been "considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived."...

. He died in 1722.

Works

He knew little of clinical medicine

Clinical Medicine

Clinical Medicine is a peer-reviewed medical journal published bimonthly by the Royal College of Physicians. It was established in 1966 as the Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of London. It was doubly named between 1998 and 2000, and since 2001 it has appeared as Clinical Medicine. Its...

, and was only skilful in the arrangement of drugs in prescriptions. He considered dried millipede

Millipede

Millipedes are arthropods that have two pairs of legs per segment . Each segment that has two pairs of legs is a result of two single segments fused together as one...

s good for tuberculous lymphatic glands, but thought the royal touch for scrofula

Scrofula

Tuberculous cervical lymphadenitis refers to a lymphadenitis of the cervical lymph nodes associated with tuberculosis. It was previously known as "scrofula".-The disease:...

 superstitious. He received the degree of M.D. from the University of Edinburgh

University of Edinburgh

The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...

 for his ‘Medicina Statica Britannica’ (1712), a translation of the ‘Aphorisms’ of Sanctorius

Sanctorius

Santorio Santorio , also called Santorio Santorii, Sanctorius of Padua, and various combinations of these names, was an Italian physiologist, physician, and professor. From 1611 to 1624 he was a professor at Padua where he performed experiments in temperature, respiration and weight...

, of which a second edition appeared in 1720. Joseph Collet, governor of Fort St. George, was one of his patrons, and Quincy printed in 1713 a laudatory poem on their common friend, the Rev. Joseph Stennett.

He published in 1717 a ‘Lexicon Physico-medicum,’ dedicated to John Montagu, 2nd Duke of Montagu

John Montagu, 2nd Duke of Montagu

John Montagu, 2nd Duke of Montagu, KG, KB, PC , styled Viscount Monthermer until 1705 and Marquess of Monthermer between 1705 and 1709, was a British peer...

, who had just been admitted a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians

Royal College of Physicians

The Royal College of Physicians of London was founded in 1518 as the College of Physicians by royal charter of King Henry VIII in 1518 - the first medical institution in England to receive a royal charter...

 of London. It is based on the medical lexicon of Bartolomeo Castelli of Messina (died 1607), published at Basle in 1628, and went through eleven editions, of which the last two appeared respectively in 1794 and 1811 (greatly revised). His ‘English Dispensatory’ (1721), of which a fourth edition appeared in 1722 and a twelfth in 1749, contains a complete account of the materia medica

Materia medica

Materia medica is a Latin medical term for the body of collected knowledge about the therapeutic properties of any substance used for healing . The term 'materia medica' derived from the title of a work by the Ancient Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides in the 1st century AD, De materia medica libre...

 and of therapeutics, and many of the prescriptions contained in it were popular.

In 1719 he published a scurrilous ‘Examination’ of John Woodward's ‘State of Physick and Diseases.’ A reply, entitled ‘An Account of Dr. Quincy's Examination, by N. N. of the Middle Temple,’ speaks of him as a bankrupt apothecary, a charge to which he made no reply in the second edition of his ‘Examination’ published, with a further ‘letter to Dr. Woodward,’ in 1720. In the same year he published an edition of the Loimologia

Loimologia

Loimologia, or, an historical Account of the Plague in London in 1665, With precautionary Directions against the like Contagion is a treatise by Dr...

of Nathaniel Hodges

Nathaniel Hodges

Nathaniel Hodges M.D. was an English physician, known for his work during the Great Plague of London and his written account Loimologia of it.-Early life:...

, and a collection of ‘Medico-physical Essays’ on ague, fevers, gout, leprosy, king's evil, and other diseases. In 1723 his ‘Prælectiones Pharmaceuticæ,’ lectures which had been delivered at his own house, were published with a preface by Dr. Peter Shaw

Peter Shaw (physician)

-Life:Shaw was the son of Robert Shaw, A.M., master of the grammar school at Lichfield. After passing some years of professional life at Scarborough, he was practising physic in London in 1726, apparently without a degree or the licence of the Royal College of Physicians, but did not permanently...

.