Archibald Pitcairne Research Articles

Archibald Pitcairne and the Newtonian Turn of Medical Philosophy

Archibald Pitcairne’s medical writings are inspired by Newton’s Principia mathematica, as the Scottish physician assumed Newtonian physics as a model for scientific inquiry that should be applied to other branches of natural philosophy, including physiology and pathology. The ideal of a comprehensive mathematical science was very appealing to late seventeenth-century intellectuals, including physicians. This essay focuses on how Pitcairne tried to implement these ideas. In particular, I argue that Pitcairne’s medical thinking is based on three philosophical assumptions: first, a methodological assumption, for which medical knowledge should be sought in the form of a deductive system; second, an epistemological assumption, that is, that our knowledge of physiological processes is sound only when we reduce them to a set of mathematical laws; and, third, an ontological assumption that identifies blood as the substance on which animal life most directly depends. I also suggest that such ideas should be studied against the backdrop of Pitcairne’s general mindset, including his personal sympathy for political conservativism. I further argue that his insistence on the reduction of natural processes to mathematical relations and his search for the universal order of nature also connect to his religious and political ideals.

David Gregory, John Arbuthnot and their roles in the early development of probability in Great Britain

The first English translation of Huygens' (1657) De Ratiociniis in Ludo Aleae was anonymously published in 1692; since the early eighteenth century it has been assigned to the Scottish physician John Arbuthnot (1667–1735). We have found evidence showing that Arbuthnot's work on probability was influenced by Archibald Pitcairne (1652–1713) and, most significantly, by David Gregory (1659–1708). Manuscripts found in Gregory's collection at the Edinburgh University Library suggest that Gregory had a key role in the translation. The circumstantial evidence presented in this article reveals that the circle of individuals led by Gregory, Arbuthnot and Pitcairne probably originated earlier than previously established and that the role of Arbuthnot was more important than originally thought. We have also shown that the first developments of probability theory in Great Britain took place in Scotland thanks to David Gregory.

Newtonian medicine and its influence in José Celestino Mutis's General Plan for Medical Studies.

This paper presents the development of a Newtonian approach to medicine in the eighteenth century by studying the case of its appropriation in the Viceroyalty of New Granada by the Spanish botanist and savant José Celestino Mutis (1732-1808). First, I briefly depict the academic milieu in which Mutis presented his ideas on modern medicine in his General Plan for the Medical Studies in 1804, claiming that they were greatly influenced by Boerhaave's appropriation of Newtonian medicine. Next, I explain in detail the emergence of this approach to medicine by considering the works of Archibald Pitcairne, George Cheyne and James Keill. Afterwards, I characterise Boerhaave's use of Newtonian physical principles for explaining both physiological and chemical phenomena. Lastly, I lay the foundations for explaining that Mutis's introduction of Newton's ideas was a complex enterprise, encompassing Newton's mathematics and physics not only as strict theoretical elements related to natural philosophy but also as they were related to the medical and chemical fields.

‘There are great alterations in the geometry of late’. The rise of Isaac Newton’s early Scottish circle

This paper traces the rise of three Scottish mathematicians – Colin Campbell, John Craig, and David Gregory – to become key figures in the dissemination and promotion of Newton’s mathematical ideas and natural philosophy in the 1680s. Two medical men – Archibald Pitcairne and his former student George Cheyne – both likewise captivated by the Principia, played minor roles in the story of Newton’s mathematics, while at the same time promoting the concept of mathematical medicine derived from his philosophical thought. Drawing on contemporary correspondence and previously unpublished papers, it considers how these men contributed to the scholarly perception of Newton and how, conversely, Newton used his increasing influence in order to encourage their work, most notably obtaining for Gregory the vacant chair in astronomy at Oxford in 1691.

ARCHIBALD PITCAIRNE AND SCOTTISH HETERODOXY, c. 1688–1713

ABSTRACTThis article argues that the Edinburgh physician Archibald Pitcairne made a significant and original contribution to European religious heterodoxy around 1700. Though Pitcairne has been studied by historians of medicine and scholars of literary culture, his heterodox writings have not been analysed in any detail. This is partly because of their publication in Latin, their relative rarity, and their considerable obscurity. The article provides a full examination of two works by Pitcairne: hisSolutio problematis de historicis; seu, inventoribus(‘Solution of the problem concerning historians or inventors’) (1688); and theEpistola Archimedis ad Regem Gelonem(‘Letter of Archimedes to King Gelo’) (1706). As well as untangling their bibliographical and textual difficulties, the article places these tracts in the context of Pitcairne's medical, mathematical, and religious interests. A range of readers deplored the sceptical implications of the pamphlets, but others, particularly in free-thinking circles in the Netherlands, admired Pitcairne's work. And yet Pitcairne himself was no atheist. He doubted a priori proofs of God's existence, but had been convinced by a version of the argument from ‘design’. The article concludes by relating Pitcairne's complex religious attitudes to his background in late seventeenth-century Scotland.

PITCAIRNEANA: AN ATHEIST TEXT BY ARCHIBALD PITCAIRNE

ABSTRACTThis article presents an overtly atheistic text from the early eighteenth century that has hitherto been completely unknown. It survives in manuscript in the Houghton Library at Harvard University, to which it was presented in 1841, and is claimed to be the work of the Scottish medical theorist, satirist, and poet, Archibald Pitcairne (1652–1713). Here, its links with Pitcairne and his milieu are assessed and its content evaluated, in conjunction with the provision of an annotated edition of the text itself.

The Phanaticks by Archibald Pitcairne

Reviewed by: The Phanaticks by Archibald Pitcairne Alasdair Raffe Archibald Pitcairne. The Phanaticks, ed. John MacQueen. Woodbridge: Boydell, 2012. Pp. lxxxii + 247. £35. Is The Phanaticks a hitherto unknown play by Archibald Pitcairne (1652–1713), the Scottish physician, Jacobite, and Latin poet? Alas, not—though Mr. MacQueen’s handsome edition publishes for the first time the original Scots-language text of the play otherwise known as The Assembly. Unlike the previous scholarly editor, Terence Tobin in 1972, Mr. MacQueen has established his text from manuscript copies of the play, which was written in the early 1690s. In doing so, he captures its linguistic vigor, but also underlines its weak construction. For though it might have been performed in Edinburgh in the 1690s or early eighteenth century, it seems that the play was primarily intended for domestic readings, with the parts performed by like-minded Scots—Episcopalians fueled by a hatred of Presbyterianism and a love of good claret. Several manuscript copies indicate how the play circulated. As well as the first printed editions of the play, published in 1722 and 1752, Mr. MacQueen has consulted three manuscript versions. These copies present various textual difficulties, and many of this edition’s generous notes detail and discuss variant readings. Yet the most obvious results of Mr. MacQueen’s study of the manuscripts are his renaming of the play, and his speculations about its authorship. “As a title,” Mr. MacQueen asserts, “The Assembly lacks authority.” One manuscript (which he labels “B”) indeed names the play “The Assembly or Scotch Reformation,” but he discounts this evidence. Yet the other manuscripts he has consulted do not give any title. A further manuscript copy, not cited by Mr. MacQueen (National Records of Scotland, CH12/16/25, dated March 6, 1696), bears the title “The Assemblie, or The Scotch Reformation.” In short, The Assembly is the appropriate name for the play. Mr. MacQueen disregards manuscript B’s title, but builds an elaborate theory on its reference, on the title page, to “the authors who is Roges.” To persons in the know, we are told, “R” would have recalled the intertwined “A. P.” of Pitcairne’s monogram. Perhaps “og” was to resemble the initials of the mathematician David Gregory, one of Pitcairne’s closest friends; and “es” might have suggested the initials of another associate, Bertram Stott. Or possibly by “Roges” was meant the Scots form of “rogues.” Or conceivably (my suggestion) the Latin “you may ask.” It is probable that the play had multiple authors. The evidence of Pitcairne’s other works—notably his poetic satire on Presbyterianism, [End Page 111] Babell (1692)—strongly suggests that he was one of them. Stott and Gregory could have been present as the play was written, though Gregory might have left Edinburgh for England before it was completed. More than this, we may ask but are unlikely to learn. Most of the persons in the play are satirical portraits of contemporary Presbyterian ministers and noblemen. The authors give to several traits that contemporaries would have recognized, such as the muddled Latinity of Salathiel Littlesense (Gilbert Rule) or Lord Huffie’s violent use of a whip (referring to an incident in the life of David Melville, third earl of Leven). Detailed notes allow readers to identify these allusive jokes, and indeed to laugh at some of them. A further strength of this edition is Mr. MacQueen’s intimate familiarity with the other works of Pitcairne, especially the Latin poetry he edited with Winifred MacQueen in 2009. Often the play is more humorous when we appreciate the parallels between its text and Pitcairne’s satirical verse. Mr. MacQueen’s introduction and notes place the play in its historical context. He argues that the play’s “comittie” of Presbyterians represents not the Kirk’s general assembly itself, but rather the commission for southern Scotland appointed by the assembly of 1690, the first to meet after the reestablishment of Scottish Presbyterianism in that year. Much of the play’s political satire relates to the activities of the commission in 1691, and Mr. MacQueen accepts the statements in the preface that the play was written in that year. But in places the play...

Commemorating James Thomson, The Seasons in Scotland, and Scots Poetry

The Seasons is a text as influential in James Thomson's Scotland in the eighteenth century and beyond as much as anywhere else. Thomson, however, is one of several hugely successful Scottish writers whose apparent Britishness or internationalism have left them in an uneasy situation within, or rather outwith, the canonical confines of Scottish literature. (1) A similar problem exists, for example, with other emigres such as James Boswell, Thomas Carlyle, or Muriel Spark. The charge of being unnatural,' inorganic, disconnected, ironically enough for the author of The Seasons, has long hung over Thomson. For instance, Duncan Glen identifies him as one of the two careerist Scottish writers (along with Walter Scott) (James 4). (2) As part of this suspect center to the writer, Thomson's influence on two strands of powerfully approved eighteenth-century Scottish literary creativity--Gaelic and poetry--has historically been undervalued and downplayed. In the case of the former, the work of Derick Thomson, Ronald Black, and others has done something to redress the situation (see Black 45-56). Eighteenth-century poetry in Scots, however, remains inadequately linked to Thomson's example, especially with regard to The Seasons. An additional part of the Scottish discounting of Thomson is that he is an Augustan writer, for which read mannered, neo-classical, and soon to become completely outmoded in the wake of the Romantic movement. (3) From one perspective, this is a rather odd judgment given Thomson's discernible influence on Wordsworth, Byron, and Keats, to say nothing of Robert Burns, but again is explicable within the context of a canonical formation in mainstream Scottish literary history (most especially during the twentieth century) that over-privileges a post-Romantic conception of--yet again--the natural as the supposed real language of men, which is also thirled to a similarly post-Romantic idea of organic, national creativity (Wordsworth 595). This essay seeks to point out some of the ways in which Thomson is part of the creative lexicon of the eighteenth-century poetry revival, but not necessarily to imply in the process that he is therefore fully Scottish, a stance which would be merely to take the essentialist coin here being argued against. Stating what should be fairly obvious, that Thomson's literary identity is multiform, or cross-borders, remains even now a position that is likely to be met with the charge of a political, perhaps especially British, agenda. The discussion that follows will examine Thomson's reception by eighteenth-century Scots-language poets pointing to his important influence, especially with regard to The Seasons, while at the same time highlighting the roots of his invidious nineteenth-and twentieth-century Scottish reputation. From the late nineteenth century, Scottish criticism reads a bifurcation in eighteenth-century Scottish literature between the Anglo-Scottish and Scots modes for which James Thomson and Allan are the opposing fathers. For William Bayne in 1898, Thomson's most formidable competitor ... in the claim to leadership in the Nature renaissance of his day ... is ... Allan Ramsay (15). and Thomson were contemporaries in Edinburgh in the second decade of the eighteenth century, and it is certainly true to say that they differed politically. in his membership in the Easy Club and, related to this, his attachment within the circles of the publisher, Thomas Ruddiman, and the scientist and Latinist, Archibald Pitcairne, was a Jacobite who opposed the Union of Parliaments of 1707. He was outspoken against the Whig outlook, implying both the British party political interest of that appellation and also, in the particular Scottish context, the Calvinist cultural tincture of the Scottish capital and of the nation more widely. Thomson, on the other hand, was a candidate initially for the Presbyterian ministry at Edinburgh College and also subject there to a Newtonian curriculum, largely in keeping with the progressive, early phase Scottish Enlightenment which, in its mainstream institutional context at least, tended toward satisfaction with British political union (Scott 13). …

500 years of the College of Surgeons and 300 years of the Chair of Anatomy in Edinburgh

2005 represents the 500th anniversary of the award of the first Charter to the Guild of Surgeons and Barbers at Edinburgh, and the 300th anniversary of the establishment of the Chair of Anatomy in the University of Edinburgh, the first Chair in this discipline in Britain. The first Charter of the Incorporation, in 1505, specified that they should dissect the body of one dead condemned criminal each year. Candidates who wished to join the Incorporation were required to be familiar with all of the gross structures of the human body. In Cambridge and Oxford, those pursuing the medical courses in these Universities during the 16th and 17th centuries were expected to have both seen and undertaken a number of anatomical dissections during their undergraduate careers. Difficulties were often encountered, however, in obtaining adequate numbers of bodies for this purpose. In Edinburgh, from 1505, for more than a century, surgical apprentices were instructed in Human Anatomy. As a result of the efforts of certain surgeons during the 17th century, Pharmacy was also taught in addition to Surgery and Anatomy. During the mid-17th century, difficulties were encountered because the earlier examiners had not entered into the Incorporation's Minutes how their examinations should be undertaken. A new Act was prepared that described in detail how these should be conducted, and this emphasised the importance of a detailed knowledge of Anatomy. In 1694, Alexander Monteith, probably on the initiative of Archibald Pitcairne, requested unclaimed bodies from the Town Council to undertake dissections. Later in 1694, the Incorporation made a similar request to the Town Council, and both requests were granted. It is believed that for political reasons Monteith probably did not pursue his claim further. The Council stipulated that the Surgeons should build an Anatomical Theatre by the end of 1697 where public dissections could be carried out. This was achieved, and these were carried out in 1702 and 1704. On 1 February 1705, the Surgeons appointed Robert Elliot as their "public dissector of anatomie." He had volunteered to undertake all of the annual public dissections in Edinburgh, and the Members of the Incorporation of Surgeons unanimously accepted his offer. On 29 August 1705, at the request of the Surgeons, the Edinburgh Town Council appointed him their first Professor of Anatomy, and instructed the University's Treasurers to pay him 15 pounds Sterling per annum as his salary. As a result of the activities of the Incorporation of Surgeons and the Town Council, the first Chair of Anatomy was established in Britain, in the University of Edinburgh.

Archibald Pitcairne and Newtonian medicine

Archibald Pitcairne and Newtonian medicine

The Tory Newtonians: Gregory, Pitcairne, and Their Circle

In the late 1680s, Archibald Pitcairne and David Gregory became devotees of Newton's natural philosophy. In the next decade, they formed the nexus of a scientific circle composed of their students. These men emerge as a specific group from the wider circle of Newton's followers for several reasons, having to do with kinship and community relationships as well as with shared intellectual beliefs. Gregory and, through him, Pitcairne were among the first to recognize Newton's achievement in thePrincipia. From their base in Edinburgh, later extending to Oxford and Leiden, they inspired several young men, including John and James Keill, John Freind, George Cheyne, George Hepburn, and William Cockburn. Gregory has long been recognized as a central figure among Newtonians, in part owing to his copious memoranda, but Pitcairne's significance both as an intellectual and as a catalyst has been neglected by historians. When one focuses on Gregory and Pitcairne and their notebooks and correspondence, as well as their published works, a well-defined group emerges around them who shared several characteristics. Politically, they were Tories. In religion, they were High Church Anglicans who valued the episcopacy and those points of ritual and doctrine that distinguished the English church from nonconformity. With the exception of John Freind, these men were Scots and shared kinship ties as well as geographic origin in the east and northeast of Scotland. Finally, all the members of this group were at least nominally physicians. Only one of them, John Keill, probably did not practice medicine, but he too took a medical degree.

Sydenham versus Newton: the Edinburgh fever dispute of the 1690s between Andrew Brown and Archibald Pitcairne.

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The anniversary of a medical school: an exhibition

The anniversary of a medical school: an exhibition

From mechanism to vitalism in eighteenth century English physiology.

One of the most striking features of English physiology in the forty years between 1730 and 1770 was the dramatic, indeed precipitous decline of varieties of mechanism and the rapid rise to preeminence of alternate varieties of vitalism. In 1733 Stephen Hales published his Haemastaticks. 1 This collection of twenty-five "statical experiments" about the functioning of animal bodies was dedicated to verifying and extending, with the help of precise, quantitative Newtonian investigative techniques, the hydraulic theory of the "animal oeconomy" that British medical writers from Archibald Pitcairne to Richard Mead had made widely popular between 1695 and 1715.2 Hales carefully measured blood pressure, determined the velocity of efflux from the heart, experimentally exhibited impedance caused by capillary ramification, and explored several corpuscular mechanisms for such phenomena as glandular secretion and animal heat.3 He thus quantitatively and conceptually elaborated the principal ideas English medical writers had previously introduced in the most recent phase of iatromechanism. Mechanistic physiology picked up where mechanistic medical theory ended, and now, early in the fourth decade of the eighteenth century, Newtonian methods and speculative suggestions served as the guidelines for the activity of the physiologists. But in the decade of the Haemastaticks and in the 1740's, physiological mechanism was already in serious decline. In the 1730's the only papers on physiological subjects to appear in the Philosophical Transactions were such diffuse and largely descriptive contributions as

1670. Selecting vacuum equipment for thethin-film processing line. II. Diffusion ion pumped systems: A L Hobson,Electronic Packaging and Production,6,1966, 34–39

2005 represents the 500th anniversary of the award of the first Charter to the Guild of Surgeons and Barbers at Edinburgh, and the 300th anniversary of the establishment of the Chair of Anatomy in the University of Edinburgh, the first Chair in this discipline in Britain. The first Charter of the Incorporation, in 1505, specified that they should dissect the body of one dead condemned criminal each year. Candidates who wished to join the Incorporation were required to be familiar with all of the gross structures of the human body. In Cambridge and Oxford, those pursuing the medical courses in these Universities during the 16th and 17th centuries were expected to have both seen and undertaken a number of anatomical dissections during their undergraduate careers. Difficulties were often encountered, however, in obtaining adequate numbers of bodies for this purpose. In Edinburgh, from 1505, for more than a century, surgical apprentices were instructed in Human Anatomy. As a result of the efforts of certain surgeons during the 17th century, Pharmacy was also taught in addition to Surgery and Anatomy. During the mid-17th century, difficulties were encountered because the earlier examiners had not entered into the Incorporation's Minutes how their examinations should be undertaken. A new Act was prepared that described in detail how these should be conducted, and this emphasised the importance of a detailed knowledge of Anatomy. In 1694, Alexander Monteith, probably on the initiative of Archibald Pitcairne, requested unclaimed bodies from the Town Council to undertake dissections. Later in 1694, the Incorporation made a similar request to the Town Council, and both requests were granted. It is believed that for political reasons Monteith probably did not pursue his claim further. The Council stipulated that the Surgeons should build an Anatomical Theatre by the end of 1697 where public dissections could be carried out. This was achieved, and these were carried out in 1702 and 1704. On 1 February 1705, the Surgeons appointed Robert Elliot as their “public dissector of anatomie.” He had volunteered to undertake all of the annual public dissections in Edinburgh, and the Members of the Incorporation of Surgeons unanimously accepted his offer. On 29 August 1705, at the request of the Surgeons, the Edinburgh Town Council appointed him their first Professor of Anatomy, and instructed the University's Treasurers to pay him £15 Sterling per annum as his salary. As a result of the activities of the Incorporation of Surgeons and the Town Council, the first Chair of Anatomy was established in Britain, in the University of Edinburgh