Dr ARCHIBALD, an eminent physician and ingenious poet, was descended from the ancient family of the Pitcairnes of Pitcairne in Fifehire, and was born at Edinburgh on the 25th of December 1652. 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 unpleasent gloom; however, which at that time hung over religion and its professors Pitcairne, 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 intensity, 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 conducing 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 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 Pitcairne, 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 unfeignedly, 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 reproached by ignorance. When at length its truth was fully established, many inviolately 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 a 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 ostenditur medicinam ab omni philo-
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(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 scripita optima sunt et perfecta, five legas Dissertationem de Motu Sanguinis per Pulmones, five alia opuscula, 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.
(c) Vide Pitcairnii 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 Lindeium), 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. 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 supporter, 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 propounding a theory which, though subversive of former ones, was to fall before others but a little more satisfactory than itself. Mechanical physicians expected more from geometry than that science could grant. They made it the foundation instead of an auxiliary to their inquiries, and applied it to parts of nature not admitting mathematical calculations. By paying more attention afterwards to the supreme influence of the living principle, the source of all the motions and functions of the body, it was found that these could not be explained by any laws of chemistry or mechanism. They are still, however, involved in obscurity; and notwithstanding the numberless improvements which have taken place in the sciences connected with medicine, will perhaps remain inscrutable while man continues in his present stage of existence.
In a science so slowly progressive as that of medicine, Dr Pitcairne did a great deal. By labouring in vain for truth in one road, he saved many the same drudgery, and thereby showed the necessity of another. He not only exploded many false notions of the chemists and Galenists which prevailed in his time, but many of those too of his own feet. In particular, he showed the absurdity of referring all diseases and their cures to an alkali or an acid (E). He refuted the idea of secretion being performed by pores differently shaped (F), Bellini's opinion of effervescences in the animal spirits with the blood, and Borelli's of air entering the blood by respiration (G). He proved the continuity of the arteries and veins (H); 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 prescription 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 looely
light. "Some parts (say 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 Lindley 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 Lindley, 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 Lindley'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 jamdudum reete per undas, "Stagnaque Cocytii non adeunda mihi; "Excute paulisper Lethaei vincula somni, "Ut feriant animum carmina nostra tuum. "Te nobis, te redde tuis, promissa datus "Gaudia; fed proavo fis comitante redux: "Namque novos viros mutataque regna videbis, "Paffeque Teutonicas sceptrra Britannia manus."
"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 Lindley might bring Rhadamantus with him to punish them.
"Unus abest sceelerum 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.
(E) Pitcairnii Dissertationes, Edin. edit. 1713. De opera quam praestant corpora acida vel alkalica in curatione morborum.
(F) De circulatione sanguinis per vasa minima.
(G) De diversa mole qua fanguis fluit per pulmones.
(H) De circulatione sanguinis per vasa minima.
(I) De circulatione sanguinis in animalibus genitis et non genitis.
(K) Elementa Medicinae, lib. i. cap. 21. et passim.
(L) The first medical publication which distinguished this country, after Dr Pitcairne's, was that of the Edinburgh Medical Essays, in the year 1732. Vide the article Monro. PITCAIRNE loosely 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 dropsical affections, they seem to be as often the approbrium 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 affluence 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 23rd 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 Differtationes Mediceae, and a short essay De Salute.