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PRINGLE, (SIR) JOHN, a
distinguished physician and cultivator of science, was born at Stitchel
house, in Roxburghshire, April 10, 1707. He was the youngest son of Sir John
Pringle of Stitchel, Bart., by Magdalen Elliot, sister of Sir Gilbert Elliot
of Stobs. His education was commenced at home under a private tutor, and
advanced at the university of St Andrews, where he had the advantage of
living with his relation, Mr Francis Pringle, professor of Greek. Having
determined on physic as a profession, he spent the winter of 1727-8 at the
medical classes in Edinburgh, and afterwards proceeded to Leyden, where, in
1730, he received his diploma, which was signed by the distinguished names
of Boerhaave, Albinus, and Gravesande, under whom he had studied. He then
settled as a physician in Edinburgh, and in a few years had so much
distinguished himself as to be, in 1734, appointed assistant and successor
to the professor of pneumatics and moral philosophy in the university. He
continued in this situation till 1742, when, chiefly by the influence of Dr
Stevenson, (an eminent whig physician, and the patron of Dr Blacklock,) he
was appointed physician to the earl of Stair, then in command of the British
army in Flanders. By the interest of this nobleman, he was, in the
same year, constituted physician to the military hospital in Flanders. An
extensive field of observation was thus opened to Dr Pringle; and that he
cultivated it with advantage, is sufficiently shown by his "Treatise on the
Diseases of the Army," subsequently published. At the battle of Dettingen,
he was in a coach with the minister, lord Carteret, and, at one particular
crisis of the action, was involved in considerable danger. On the
resignation of the earl of Stair, he also proposed resigning, but was
prevented by his lordship, whom he accompanied, however, forty miles on his
way to England, as a mark of his respect. Having gained equal favour with
the duke of Cumberland, Dr Pringle was, in March, 1745, appointed
physician-general to the forces in the Low Countries, and physician to the
royal hospitals in the same countries. He now resigned his Edinburgh
professorship, the duties of which had been performed by deputy in his
absence, In the latter part of the year 1745, he returned to Britain, in
attendance upon the forces which were brought over to suppress the
rebellion. In passing through London in October, he was chosen a Fellow of
the Royal Society. Early in the ensuing year, he accompanied the duke of
Cumberland to Scotland, and remained with the army, after the battle of
Culloden, till its return to England, in the middle of August. In 1747 and
1748, he again attended the army abroad.
After the peace of
Aix-la-Chapelle, in the latter year, he settled as a physician in London,
under the patronage of the duke of Cumberland, who, in April, 1749,
appointed him his physician in ordinary. In 1750, Dr Pringle published his
first work, a pamphlet on the Jail and Hospital Fever, hastily prepared, to
meet the exigency of the breaking out of that distemper in London. It was
afterwards revised, and included in the work on the diseases of the army.
About this time, Dr Pringle
commenced his scientific career, by reading a series of papers to the Royal
Society, on septic and antiseptic substances, and their use in the theory of
medicine; which procured for their author the honour of Sir Godfrey Copley’s
gold medal, and not only gave him reputation as an experimental philosopher,
but helped to stimulate the spirit of physical inquiry, then rising into
force in Britain. A great variety of other papers by Dr Pringle are found in
the Transactions of the Society, during the four ensuing years. In 1752, he
married Charlotte, the second daughter of Dr Oliver, an eminent physician in
Bath; who died a few years after, leaving him no children. In the same year,
he published his great work on the diseases of the army, which instantly
placed the author in the first rank of medical writers. In 1761, he was
appointed physician to the household of the young queen Charlotte; an honour
which was followed, in rapid succession, by the appointments of physician
extraordinary, and physician in ordinary, to her majesty. He now became an
intimate and confidential person in the family of the king, who, in 1766,
raised him to the dignity of a baronet of Great Britain. In 1768, he was
appointed physician in ordinary to the king’s mother, the princess of Wales,
with a salary of one hundred pounds a-year.
After having for many years
acted as a member of the council in the Royal Society, he was, in November,
1772, elected president of that distinguished body; by far the highest mark
of honour he ever received. It has always, on the other hand, been
acknowledged, that the zeal and assiduity displayed by Sir John in this
situation, communicated an impulse to the exertions of the society, of which
the most sensible proofs are to be found in its Transactions published
during the years of his presidency. The last medical honour conferred on Sir
John Pringle was his appointment, in 1774, as physician extraordinary to the
king.
It would be wearisome to
repeat the list of honours showered upon him by foreign learned bodies; we
shall only allude to his succeeding Linnaeus, in 1778, as one of the eight
foreign members of the French Academy.
Long ere this period, Sir
John had acquired a considerable fortune by his practice and from other
sources, and lived in a style of dignified hospitality suitable to his high
character. He was in the habit of holding conversations on the Sunday
evenings, which were attended by men of literature and science from all
countries. After passing his seventieth year, feeling his health declining,
he resigned the presidency of the Royal Society, in which he was
succeeded (1778) by Mr (afterwards Sir) Joseph Banks, and formed the
resolution of retiring to spend the remainder of his days in his native
country. Having passed the summer of 1780 very pleasantly in Scotland, he
purchased a house in Edinburgh, sold off that in which he had long resided
in London, and in the spring of 1781 made a decided remove to the Scottish
capital. It seems to have been the hope of the declining veteran, that he
might more agreeably sink to rest amidst the friends and the scenes of his
youth, than amongst strangers; and he also contemplated with pleasure in the
regular evening conversations, for which he intended to throw open his
house. It is painful to relate, that he was disappointed in his views. The
friends of his youth had almost all passed away; the scenes were changed to
such a degree, that they failed to suggest the associations he expected. The
society of Edinburgh he found to be of too limited a nature, to keep up a
system of weekly conversations with the necessary degree of novelty and
spirit. He also suffered considerably from the keen winds, to which
Edinburgh is so remarkably exposed. These evils were exaggerated by his
increasing infirmities, and perhaps by that restlessness of mind, which, in
the midst of bodily complaints, is still hoping to derive some benefit from
a change of place. He determined, therefore, to return to London, where he
arrived in the beginning of September.
Sir John Pringle did not long
survive this change of residence. On the evening of the 14th of January,
1782, while attending a stated meeting of scientific friends in the house of
a Mr Watson, a grocer in the. Strand, he was seized with a fit, from which
he never recovered. He expired on the 18th, in the
seventy-fifth year of his age, and was interred in St James’s church. Sir
John left the bulk of his fortune to his nephew, Sir James Pringle of
Stitchel, who also inherited from him the British baronetcy, in addition to
that of Nova Scotia, which the family had previously possessed. As a
physician and philosophical inquirer, his character was of the first order;
nor were his private virtues less eminent. He never grudged his professional
assistance to those who could not afford to remunerate him; and he was a
sincere, though liberal and rational, professor of the truths of religion.
His conduct, in every relation of life, was upright and honourable. He
informed Mr Boswell—and few gentlemen of that period could make such a
boast—that he had never in his life been intoxicated with liquor. There is a
monument to Sir John, by Nollekins, in Westminster Abbey. |
