(Dr Archibald), a most eminent physician and ingenious poet, was descended from the ancient family of the Pitcairnes of Pitcairne in Fife-shire, and was born at Edinburgh on the 29th of December 1622. He commenced his studies at the school of Dalkeith; and from thence he was removed to the university of Edinburgh, where he improved himself in classical learning, and completed a regular course of philosophy. His friends, according to the authors of the Biographia Britannica, were desirous that he should follow the profession of theology. The unpleasant gloom, however, which at that time hung over religion and its professors in Scotland, could not but very ill suit with that native cheerfulness of temper and liberality of mind which made him, long after, a mark for the arrows of precipitation and grimace. The law seems to have been his own choice, and to this science he turned his attention. With an ardour peculiar to himself, and an ambition to excel in whatever he undertook, he pursued it with so much intenseness, that his health began to be impaired. On this account, his physicians advised him to set out for the south of France. By the time he reached Paris, he was happily so far recovered, that he determined to renew his studies; but being informed that there was no able professor of law in that city, and finding several gentlemen of his acquaintance engaged in the study of physic, he went with them to the lectures and hospitals, and employed himself in this manner for several months till his affairs called him home.
On his return, he applied himself chiefly to the mathematics. It is not usual to see the briars of this science and the flowers of poetry growing in the same soil. Here, however, they were happily united; and to this union perhaps was owing that singular command of judgment, over one of the liveliest of fancies, which appears in every part of his works. His intimacy with Dr David Gregory, the celebrated mathematical professor, began about the same time; and probably conduced to cherish his natural aptitude for this study. It was then, in a great measure, new to him; it soon became his principal delight; his progress in it was rapid, and correspondent to his progress in other pursuits. His improvements on the method of infinite series then adopted, which Dr Wallis of Oxford afterwards PIT [782] PIT
Pitcairne's works published, were a conspicuous and early proof of his abilities in this science.
Had Dr Pitcairne continued to prosecute the study of the law, and could he have moulded his principles to the times, the first offices and honours of the state might have been looked for without presumption as the probable reward of such talents as he possessed. Struck, however, with the charms of mathematical truth which had been lately introduced into the philosophy of medicine, and hoping to reduce the healing art to geometrical method, he unalterably determined on this less aspiring profession. At the period when he formed this resolution, the ideas of the medical world, already sufficiently confused, were still farther jumbled by the discovery of the circulation of the blood, which had as yet produced nothing but doubt, uncertainty, and astonishment. In Edinburgh at that time there was no school, no hospital, no opportunity of improvement but the chamber and the shop. He therefore soon after returned to Paris. Genius and industry are unhappily not often united in the same character; of such an union, however, Dr Pitcairne is a celebrated instance. During his residence in France, he cultivated the object of his pursuit with his natural enthusiasm, and with a steadfastness from which he could not be diverted by the allurements of that joy which, in his hours of social and festive intercourse, he always felt and always gave. Among his various occupations, the study of the ancient physicians seems to have had a principal share. This appears from a treatise which he published some time after his return; and it shows, that he wisely determined to know the progress of medicine from its earliest periods, before he attempted to reform and improve that science.
On the 13th of August 1680, he received, from the faculty of Rheims the degree of Doctor; which, on the 7th of August 1699, was likewise conferred on him by the university of Aberdeen; both being attended with marks of peculiar distinction. Other medical honours are said to have been conferred on him in France and elsewhere; but nothing affords a more unequivocal testimony to his abilities than that which the surgeons of Edinburgh gave, in admitting him, freely and unsolicited, a member of their college. None had such opportunities of judging of his merit as a practitioner, and on no physician did they ever bestow the same public mark of respect. Soon after his graduation at Rheims, he returned to Edinburgh; where, on the 29th of November 1681, the Royal College of Physicians was instituted; and his name, among others, graced the original patent from the crown.
In his Solutio Problematis de Inventoribus, the treatise above alluded to, he discovers a wonderful degree of medical literature, and makes use of it in a manner that does great honour both to his head and his heart. His object is to vindicate Dr Harvey's claim to the discovery of the circulation of the blood. The discovery was, at first, controverted by envy, and repudiated by ignorance. When at length its truth was fully established, many, invidiously attempted to tear the laurels from the illustrious Englishman, and to plant them on the brows of Hippocrates and others. Had the attempt been directed against himself, the generous soul of Pitcairne could not have exerted more zeal in defence; and his arguments remain unanswered.
During his residence in Scotland, his reputation became so considerable, that, in the year 1691, the university of Leyden solicited him to fill the medical chair, at that time vacant. Such an honourable testimony of respect, from a foreign nation, and from such an university, cannot perhaps be produced in the medical biography of Great Britain. The lustre of such characters reflects honour on their profession, and on the country which has the good fortune of giving them birth; and serves to give the individuals of that country not only a useful estimation in their own eyes, but in those also of the rest of the world. Dr Pitcairne's well-known political principles excluded him from public honours and promotion at home; he therefore accepted the invitation from abroad; and, on the 26th of April 1692, delivered, at Leyden, his elegant and masterly inaugural oration: Oratio qua officium medicinam ab omni philosophorum fide liberam. In this he clears medicine from the rubbish of the old philosophy; separates it from the influence of the different sects; places it on the broad and only sure foundation of experience; shows how little good inquiries into the manner how medicines operate have done to the art; and demonstrates the necessity of a sedulous attention to their effects, and to the various appearances of disease.
Nothing (says an elegant panegyrist* of our author) *Dr Charles marks a superiority of intellect so much as the courage requisite to stem a torrent of obstinately prevailing and groundless opinions. For this the genius and fire at E. talents of Pitcairne were admirably adapted; and, indubitably his oration, he displays them to the utmost. It was for the year received with the highest commendations; and the ad-which per- ministrators, to testify their sense of such an acquisition performance to their university, greatly augmented the ordinary ap- the present pointment of his chair.
He discharged the duties of his office at Leyden so steadily as to answer the most languine expectations. He taught with a perspicuity and eloquence which met with universal applause. Independently of the encomiums of Boerhaave and Mead, who were his pupils, the numerous manuscript copies of his lectures, and the mutilated specimen of them† which found its way into the world without his knowledge, show how justly it was bestowed. At the same time, he was not more celebrated as a professor than as a practical physician; and notwithstanding the multiplicity of his business in both these characters, he found leisure to publish several treatises on the circulation, and some other of the most important parts of the animal economy (a).
At the close of the session he set out for Scotland, with an intention of returning in time for the succeeding one. On his marrying (b) the daughter of Sir Archibald
(a) Dr Boerhaave gives the following character of these and some other of Dr Pitcairne's dissertations, which were collected and published at Rotterdam, anno 1701: "Haec scripta optima sunt et perfecta, five leges Dissertationem de Motu Sanguinis per Pulmones, five alia opulcula, five ultimum tractatum de Opio." Methodus studii, ab Hallero edita, p. 569.
(b) He had been married before to a daughter of Colonel James Hay of Pitfour, by whom he had a son and daughter, who both died young. Pitcairne, Archibald Stevenson, the object of his journey, her relations would on no account consent to part with him again. He was therefore reluctantly obliged to remain; and he wrote the university a polite apology, which was received with the utmost regret. He even declined the most flattering solicitations and tempting offers to settle in London. Indeed he soon came into that extensive practice to which his abilities entitled him, and was also appointed titular professor of medicine in the university of Edinburgh.
The uniformity of a professional life is seldom interrupted by incidents worthy of record. Specimens, however, of that brilliant wit with which he delighted his friends in the hours of his leisure, continue to entertain us (c); and the effects of that eminent skill which he exerted in the cure of disease, still operate to the good of posterity.
The discovery of the circulation, while in some measure it exploded the chemical and Galenical doctrines, tended to introduce mathematical and mechanical reasoning in their stead. Of this theory (d) Dr Pitcairne was the principal support, and the first who introduced it into Britain. A mathematical turn of mind, and a wish for mathematical certainty in medicine, biased him in its favour, and he pushed it to its utmost extent. One is at a loss whether most to admire or regret such a waste of talents in propelling a
(c) Vide Pitcairni Poemata.—Several of his poems, however, are obscure, and some of them totally unintelligible without a key. In those of them which are of a political kind, he wished not to express himself too clearly; and in others, he alludes to private occurrences which were not known beyond the circle of his companions. His poem (Ad Lindseum), addressed to his friend Lindsey, is commented on by the authors of the Biographia Britannica; and it is to be regretted that it is the only one on which they have been solicitous to throw light. "Some parts (if they) of this poem, are hardly intelligible, without knowing a circumstance in the Doctor's life, which he often told, and never without some emotion. It is a well-known story of the two Platonic philosophers, who promised one another, that whichever died first should make a visit to his surviving companion. This story being read by Mr Lindsey and our author together, they, being both then very young, entered into the same engagement. Soon after, Pitcairne, at his father's house in Fife, dreamed one morning that Lindsey, who was then at Paris, came to him, and told him he was not dead, as was commonly reported, but still alive, and lived in a very agreeable place, to which he could not yet carry him. By the course of the post news came of Lindsey's death, which happened very suddenly the morning of the dream. When this is known, the poem is easily understood, and shines with no common degree of beauty.
"Lyndesi! Stygias jamduum vece per undas, "Stagnaque Cocytii non adeunda mihi; "Execute paulisper Lethaei vincula somni, "Ut feriant animum carmina nostra tium. "Te nobis, te redde tuis, promissa datus; "Gaudia; sed proavo sis comitante redux: "Namque novos viros mutataque regna videbis, "Praetique Teutonicas sceptram Britannia manus*."
* Written in 1689.
"He then proceeds to exclaim against the principles and practices which produced this Teutonic violence upon the British sceptre; and concludes with a wish, that Lindsey might bring Rhadamanthus with him to punish them.
"Unus abest scelerum vindex Rhadamanthus; amice, "Dii faciant reditus fit comes ille tui!
"Every one sees how much keener an edge is given to the satire upon the revolution, by making it an additional reason for his friend's keeping his promise to return him a visit after his death."
(d) See the article Physiology, no 7—14.
(e) Pitcairni Dissertationes, Edin. edit. 1713. De opera quam praestant corpora acida vel alkalica in cura, tione morborum.
(f) De circulatione sanguinis per vasa minima.
the animal spirits with the blood, and Borilli's of air entering the blood by respiration (c). He proved the continuity of the arteries and veins (ii); and seems to have been the first who showed that the blood flows from a smaller capacity into a larger; that the aorta, with respect to the arterial system, is the apex of a cone (i). In this therefore he may be considered as the latent spring of the discoveries respecting the powers moving the blood. He introduced a simplicity of precription unknown in pharmacy before his time (k); and such was the state of medicine in this country, that scarcely have the works of any contemporary or preceding author been thought worthy even of preservation (l). As to the errors of his philosophy, let it be remembered, that no theory has as yet stood the test of many years in an enlightened period. His own hung very loofely about him (m); and the present generally received practice differs from his very little in reality. He treated inflammatory and hemorrhagic diseases by bleeding, purging, and blistering, as has been done uniformly and solely on the different theories since. His method of administering mercury and the bark is observed at this day; and with respect to febrile, nervous, glandular, and dropical affections, they seem to be as often the opprobrium of the art now as they were then.
Dr Pitcairne was universally considered as the first physician of his time. No one appears ever to have had so much practice in this country, or so many consultations from abroad; and no one, from all accounts, ever practised with greater sagacity and success. The highest thought themselves honoured by his acquaintance, and the lowest were never denied his affiance and advice. The emoluments of his profession must have been great; but his charities are known to have been correspondent. The possession of money he postponed to more liberal objects: he collected one of the finest private libraries in the world; which was purchased, after his death, by the Czar of Muscovy. Notwithstanding the fatigues he underwent in the exercise of his profession, his constitution was naturally delicate. About the beginning of October 1713, he became affected with his last illness; and on the 23d he died, regretted by science as its ornament, by his country as its boast, and by humanity as its friend. He left a son and four daughters: of whom only one of the latter now survives. The present noble family of Kelly are his grandchildren.
Some anonymous publications are attributed to Dr Pitcairne, particularly a treatise De Legibus Historiae Naturalis, &c.; but the only ones he thought proper to legitimate are his Dissertationes Medicæ, and a short essay De Salute.
PITCHCAITHLY. See PITCAITHLY.