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BLAIR, PATRICK, M. D. an
eminent botanist in the earlier period of the existence of that science in
Britain, was first known as a practitioner of surgery and physic at
Dundee, where he brought himself into prominent notice as an anatomist,
1706, by the dissection of an elephant which died near that place. He was
a non-juror or Scottish episcopalian, and so far attached to the exiled
family of Stuart, as to be imprisoned during the insurrection of 1715, as
a suspected person. He afterwards removed to London, where he recommended
himself to the attention of the Royal Society by some discourses on the
sexes of flowers. His stay in London was short, and after leaving it, he
settled at Boston in Lincolnshire, where Dr Pulteney conjectures that he
practised physic during the remainder of his life. The same writer, in his
"Historical and Biographical Sketches of English Botany,"
supposes that his death happened soon after the publication of the seventh
Decad of his Pharmacobotanologia, in 1728.
Dr Blair’s first
publication was entitled, "Miscellaneous Observations in Physic,
Anatomy, Surgery, and Botanicks, 8vo, 1718." In the botanical part of
this work, he insinuates some doubts relating to the method suggested by
Petion and others, of deducing the qualities of vegetables from the
agreement in natural characters; and instances the Cynoglossum, as
tending to prove the fallacy of this rule. He relates several instances of
the poisonous effects of plants, and thinks the Echium Marinum (Pulmonaria
Maritima of Linnaeus) should be ranked in the genus Cynoglossum, since
it possesses a narcotic power. He describes and figures several of the
more rare British plants, which he had discovered in a tour made into
Wales; for instance, the Rumex Digynus, Lobelia Dortmanna, Alisma
Ranunculoides, Pyrola Rotundifolia, Alchemilla Alpina, etc. But the work
by which he rendered the greatest service to botany, originated with his
"Discourse on the Sexes of Plants," read before the Royal
Society, and afterwards greatly amplified, and published, at the request
of several members of that body, under the title of "Botanical
Essays, 8vo, 1720." This treatise is divided into two parts,
containing five essays; the three first respecting what is proper to
plants, and the two last, what is proper to plants and animals. This is
acknowledged, by an eminent judge, to have been the first complete work,
at least in the English language, on that important department of
botanical science, the sexes of the plants. The author shows himself well
acquainted, in general, with all the opinions and arguments which had been
already circulated on the same subject. The value of the work must not be
estimated by the measure of modern knowledge, though even at this day it
may be read by those not critically versed in the subject, with
instruction and improvement. A view of the several methods then invented,
cannot be seen so connectedly in any other English author. Dr Blair
strengthened the arguments in proof of the sexes of plants, by sound
reasoning and some new experiments. His reasons against Morland’s
opinion of the entrance of the Farina into the Vascudum Seminale,
and his refutation of the Lewenhoekian theory, have met with the sanction
of the greatest names in modern botany. Dr Blair’s last distinct
publication, which he did not live to complete, was "Parmacobotanologia,
or an Alphabetical and Classical Dissertation on all the British
indigenous and garden plants of the New Dispensatory," 4to, 1723—28.
In this work, which was carried no further than the letter H, the genera
and species are described, the sensible qualities and medicinal powers are
subjoined, with the pharmaceutical uses, and the author also notices
several of the more rare English plants, discovered by himself in the
environs of Boston. Dr Blair’s fugitive writings consist of various
papers in the Philosophical Transactions, of which one of the most
remarkable is an account of the Anatomy and Osteology of the Elephant,
drawn up from his observations in dissecting the animal above alluded to
at Dundee.
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