Sir John, an eminent physician and philosopher, was a younger son of Sir John Pringle of Stitchel, in the shire of Roxburgh, baronet. He took the degree of doctor of physic at Leyden, in 1730, and published there his Dissertatio Inauguralis. After having been some years professor of moral philosophy at Edinburgh, he was, in June 1745, appointed physician to the Duke of Cumberland, and physician-general to the hospital of the forces in Flanders, where the Earl of Stair appears to have been his patron. In February 1746, Dr. Pringle, Dr. Armstrong, and Dr. Barker, were nominated physicians to the hospital of lame, maimed, and sick soldiers, behind Buckingham House; and in April 1749, he was appointed physician in ordinary to the king. The following year he published Observations on the Nature and Cure of Hospital and Gaol Fevers, in a Letter to Dr. Mead, 8vo.; and in 1752 he favoured the public with the result of his long experience, in an admirable treatise, under the title of Observations on the Diseases of the Army in Camp and Garrison, 8vo. On the 14th of April 1752, he married Charlotte, second daughter of Dr. Oliver, an eminent physician at Bath. In 1756 he was appointed, jointly with Doctor afterwards Sir Clifton Winningham, physician to the hospital for the service of the forces of Great Britain. On the accession of George III., Dr. Pringle was appointed physician to the queen's household in 1761, and physician in ordinary to the queen in 1763, in which year he was admitted of the college of physicians in London; and on the 5th of June 1766, he was advanced to the dignity of baronet of Great Britain. In 1772 he was elected president of the Royal Society, where his speeches for five successive years, on delivering the prize-medal, of Sir Godfrey Copley, gave the greatest satisfaction. Sir John Pringle was, in 1777, appointed physician-extraordinary to the king. He was also a fellow of the College of Physicians at Edinburgh, and of the Royal Medical Society at Paris, member of the Royal Academies of Paris, Stockholm, Göttingen, and of the Philosophical Societies at Edinburgh and Haerlem; and he continued president of the Royal Society till November 1778, after which period he gradually withdrew from the world, and in 1781 quitted his elegant house in Pall Mall, where he had long distinguished himself as the warm friend and patron of literary men of every nation and profession. Having made an excursion to his native country, he returned to London in the latter end of the year, and died on the 18th of January 1782, greatly beloved and respected. Having no children, he was succeeded in his estate, and also, agreeably to the limitation of the patent, in title, by his nephew, Sir James Pringle. Amongst his communications to the Royal Society, the following are the principal, viz. 1, Some Experiments on Substances resisting Putrefaction, Phil. Trans., No. 496, p. 580, and No. 496, p. 525, 550, reprinted with additions in Martin's Abridgment, vol. xi. p. 1365; 2, Account of some Persons seized with the Gaol Fever by working in Newgate, and of the manner by which the Infection was communicated to one entire Family, vol. xlviii., p. 42; 3, A remarkable Case of Fragility, Flexibility, and Dissolution of the Bones, ib. p. 297; 4, Account of the Earthquake felt at Brussels, vol. xlix., p. 546; 5, Account of the sinking of a river near Pontypool in Monmouthshire, ibid., p. 547; 6, Account of an Earthquake, felt February 18, 1756, along the coast of England, between Margate and Dover, ibid., p. 579; 7, Account of the Earthquake felt at Glasgow and Dunbarton, also of a shower of dust falling on a Ship between Shetland and Iceland, ibid., p. 509; 8, Several Accounts of the Fiery Meteor which appeared on Sunday, November 26, 1758, between eight and nine at night, vol. i., p. 218; 9, Account of the Virtues of Soap in dissolving the Stone, in the Case of the Reverend Mr. Matthew Simson, ibid., p. 221; 10, Account of the effects of Electricity in Paralytic Cases, ibid., 481; 11, Some Account of the Success of the Vitrum Ceratum Antimonii, printed in the Edinburgh Medical Essays, vol. v.