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  been lost by diarrhœa or by hæmorrhage. He died at Islington on 25 Nov. 1791, and was buried in a vault in the church of St. Bartholomew the Less, within the hospital walls, 1 Dec. 1791. His portrait, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, is in the censor's room at the College of Physicians; it was engraved by John Jones in 1777. Another engraved portrait, by Hedges, is mentioned by Bromley. Pitcairn received Radcliffe's gold-headed cane from [q. v.], and his arms are engraved upon it.



PITCAIRNE, ARCHIBALD (1652–1713), physician and poet, was born in Edinburgh on 25 Dec. 1652. His father, Alexander Pitcairne, a merchant and magistrate of Edinburgh, claimed descent from the old family of Pitcairne, Fifeshire; and his mother, whose name was Sydserf, was connected with a family in Haddingtonshire descended from the Sydserfs of Rutlaw. After attending the school of Dalkeith, he in 1668 entered the university of Edinburgh, wherein 1671 he graduated M.A. The intention of his father was that he should study for the church, but ultimately he was permitted to enter on the study of the law, which he did, first in Edinburgh, and afterwards in Paris. At Paris he made the acquaintance of several medical students; and, becoming interested in their studies, began to attend the hospitals along with them. Returning to Edinburgh, he was induced by Dr. (1661–1708) [q. v.], his intimate friend, to begin the study of mathematics, in which he acquired exceptional proficiency. His mathematical studies did not divert his attention from medicine, but his mathematical bent more or less influenced his medical theories and investigations. About 1675 he resumed his medical studies in Paris, and in August 1680 he obtained the degree of M.D. from the faculty of Rheims. Shortly afterwards he commenced practice as a physician in Edinburgh, and he was one of the original members of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, incorporated in 1681. When an attempt was made to found a medical school in the university of Edinburgh in 1685, Pitcairne and Dr. Halkett were chosen soon after the appointment of Sir [q. v.] (, Historical Notices, p. 660), but it is supposed that Pitcairne never delivered any lectures.

In 1688 Pitcairne published, at Edinburgh, ‘Solutio Problematis de Historicis; seu de Inventoribus Dissertatio,’ of which an enlarged edition appeared at Leyden in 1693. This pamphlet, in which he vindicated the claims of Harvey to the discovery of the circulation of the blood, gained him so high reputation that in 1692 the council of the university of Leyden invited him to fill the chair of physic there. As his extreme Jacobite sympathies were proving somewhat prejudicial to his success in Edinburgh, he accepted the invitation, his inaugural lecture being delivered on 26 April. It was published, under the title ‘Oratio, qua ostenditur Medicinam ab omni philosophandi secta esse liberam,’ Leyden, 1692; Edinburgh, 1713. He also published, at Leyden, ‘De Sanguinis Circulatione in animalibus genitis et non genitis,’ 1693. At Leyden he delivered a course of lectures on the works of Bellini; but, according to Bayle, their abstruse and mathematical character detracted from their popularity (, iv. 737). Partly, perhaps, on this account, as well as owing to the fact that the lady who was about to become his second wife was disinclined to settle at Leyden, he in 1693 resigned his chair there, and returned to Edinburgh.

Soon after his return to Edinburgh Pitcairne became involved in various medical controversies, the bitterness of which was as much owing to political as to scientific antipathies. In 1695 he was severely attacked in a volume entitled ‘Apollo Mathematicus, or the Art of curing Diseases by the Mathematics, a work both profitable and pleasant; to which is added a Discourse of Certainty according to the Principles of the same Author.’ The work was supposed to have been written by Dr. (afterwards Sir Edward) Eyzat. The same year there appeared ‘Tarrago unmasked, or an Answer to a late Pamphlet entitled “Apollo Mathematicus, by George Hepburn, M.D., and Member of the College at Edinburgh,” to which is added by Dr. Pitcairne “The Theory of the Internal Diseases of the Eye demonstrated mathematically.”’ For this pamphlet Dr. Hepburn, a pupil of Pitcairne, was suspended from the exercise of his right to sit and vote as a member of the College of Physicians. On 18 Nov. Pitcairne tendered a protest against the admission of certain fellows, including Dr. Eyzat, as having been irregularly elected; but on the 22nd the committee to whom the matter had been referred reported that the protestation given in and subscribed by Pitcairne was ‘a calumnious, scandalous, false and arrogant paper,’ and he was suspended ‘from voting in the college or sitting in any