Archibald, an eminent physician, was born at Edinburgh on the 25th December 1652. Having taken his master's degree at the university of his native city in 1671, and having spent some time in the study of law, he afterwards turned his attention to medicine. He prosecuted the latter study with great ardour and success for five years in France, and took his medical degree at Rheims on the 13th of August 1680. Returning to Edinburgh, he entered upon a distinguished professional career. On the foundation of the Royal College of Physicians in 1681, Pitcairne was chosen a fellow of that learned body. His publication of Soluto Problematis de Inventoribus in 1688 extended his professional reputation, and had the effect of procuring for him the chair of physic at Leyden in 1692. The students of that venerable university—and among them were Boerhaave and Mead—found the Scot too abstract and geometrical in his medical prelections for their tastes, which led to Pitcairne's return to his native city during the following year. He took to his former practice, and soon gained a British reputation as a skilful physician. What leisure he had he contrived to occupy in the composition of satirical verses, which seem to have pleased his friends while they exasperated his enemies. His satirical propensities, combined with his violent prejudices as a Jacobite and an Episcopalian, and a relish for questionable jests, led him into contests, professional and otherwise, both frequent and fierce. The ferocious attack to which he was subjected in the Apollo Mathematicus, published in 1695, and ascribed to the pen of Dr Eyzat, was the precursor to a rancorous and disreputable pamphleteering war, conducted by the members of the Royal College of Physicians. At the outset of the squeak Pitcairne rashly unseated himself in the Royal College. He retired in sullen protest, but overtures of reconciliation and pacific resolutions having been duly framed and agreed upon, the breach was got healed, and the suspended doctor resumed his seat after a six years' absence. In 1701 Pitcairne published a volume of eight dissertations at Rotterdam, entitled Archibaldi Pitcairnii Dissertationes Mediceae, which he enlarged by the addition of six new discourses in 1713. Of these fourteen dissertations an English translation was soon afterwards published in 8vo, by Drs Sewell and Desaguilliers, under the title of The Whole Works of Dr Archibald Pitcairne published by himself; wherein are discovered the true Foundation and Principles of the Art of Physic, with Cases and Observations upon Distempers and Medicines. A tract containing Epistolae Archiepiscopis ad Regem Gelonem, Alboe Graecae reporta anno aere Christiano 1688, appeared at Amsterdam in 1706. Dr Pitcairne died on the 26th October 1713, in the sixty-first year of his age.

Four years after the author's death appeared a volume made up mainly of notes of his lectures, taken by his pupils. A complete collection of his works in Latin prose, with the addition of a few poems, entitled Archibaldi Pitcairni, Medici celeberrimi Scoeto-Britanni, Opera Omnia Medica, appeared at Leyden, 4to, 1737. To Pitcairne also is assigned a share in the composition of The Assembly, a Comedy by a Scots Gentleman, London, 1722, and Edinburgh, 1766; a performance characterized more by ribaldry and profanity than by wit or humour. To him also is ascribed the authorship of Babell, a Satirical Poem on the Proceedings of the General Assembly in the year 1692, Edinburgh, 1830. His Latin poems, of which an edition was published under the title of Selecta Poemata, Edinburgh, 1727, were much esteemed during his own day. They are chiefly to be admired for their point and pungency. Pitcairne belongs to the mathematical and mechanical school of physic; and in the annals of medicine his name is honourably mentioned with those of Borelli, Bellini, and other great masters of the mathematico-medical art. Despite his numerous failings, he seems to have been a man of a highly benevolent disposition; and he is said to have been in the habit of relieving many who knew not their benefactor. "In short," says Dr Sewell, "he was one of the greatest and most useful men in his profession this age has produced; of a free and universal genius, a good orator, poet, and philosopher. He was of a pleasant engaging humour. Life sat very easy upon him in all its circumstances. He despised many, but hated none."

PITCH. See TAR.