PRINGLE, SIR JOHN, an eminent Scottish physician, and president of the Royal Society of London, was born at Stitchel-house, in Roxburghshire, on the 10th of April, 1707. He was the youngest son of Sir John Pringle, Bart. of Stitchel, and of Magdalen Elliot, sister of Sir Gilbert Elliot. After receiving, under a private tutor, the ele ments of a classical education, he went to the College of St. Andrews, where Mr. Francis Pringle, a relation of his own, held the Greek professorship. Having resolved to follow the medical profession, he spent the session of 1727 and 1728 in Edinburgh; but he repaired at the end of the year to Leyden to study under the celebrated Boerhaave, who was then considerably advanced in life. At his gradu ation in that university, in July, 1730, he wrote an inaugu ral dissertation, De Illarcore Senili ; and he soon afterwards established himself as a physician in Edinburgh. Having had occasion to devote his attention to ethics, he was made joint professor of moral philosophy with Mr. Scott, in March, 1734; and, after the death of his colleague, he discharged the duties of that office, along with those of the medical profession, till 1742, when, on the recommenda tion of Dr. Stevenson, he was nominated physician to the Earl of Stair, who was then at the head of the British army. In the autumn of the same year he was chosen physician to the military hospital in Flanders; but he still retained his professorship, the duties of which were discharged by a substitute.
Having accompanied our army to Flanders, during the campaign of 1744, his diligence and talents were so con spicuous, that the Duke of Cumberland appointed him physician-general to his Majesty's forces in the Low Countries, and also physician to the royal hospitals. On the 31st October, 1745, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society ; and in the same year he was recalled from Flanders to attend the army sent to Scotland. He accord ingly accompanied the Duke of Cumberland in 1746, and continued with the army in Scotland, till the dispersion of the Highlanders at Culloden permitted their return to Eng land. His services were again required abroad, and in
1747 and 1748 he attended the British army ; but after the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, he returned to England in 1748.
Being again settled in London as a medical practitioner, Dr. Pringle devoted himself to the studies of his profes sion. In the year 1747, the Duke of Cumberland ap pointed him his physician in ordinary ; and in 1750 he pub lished his Observations on the Gaol or Hospital Fever.
The first paper which Dr. Pringle communicated to the Royal Society, was his Experiments on Substances resist ing Putrefaction, which appeared in the Transactions for 1750,* and which were reprinted in his Observations on the Diseases of the Army, which appeared in 1752, and werh translated into several languages. These experi ments were considered of sufficient importance to entitle their author to Sir Godfrey Copley's gold medal. In the Phil. Trans. for 1753, he published his Account of several persons seized with the Gaol Fever by working in „New gate; t and in the same year he communicated A re markable case of Fragility, Flexibility, and Dissolution of the Bones. The next paper of any importance which our author published, was a collection of Several Accounts of the Fiery Meteor, which appeared on the 26th Nov. 1758,H which was followed by Remarks on the several Ac counts of the Fiery Meteor, and other such Bodies.
In the year 1752, Dr. Pringle married the second daughter of Dr. Oliver of Bath ; but he had the misfor tune of being a widower in three years. After the war which commenced in 1755, Dr. Pringle attended the camps in England for three years ; but in 1758, he quitted the service entirely, and was in the same year admitted a licentiate of the College of Physicians.
On the accession of George III. Dr. Pringle was nomi nated physician to the queen's household in 1761; and in 1763, physician extraordinary to the queen. In the same year he was elected a fellow of the Royal College of Phy year and he succeeded Dr. Wollaston in 1764, as physician in ordinary to the queen. In 1766, the dignity of a baronet of Great Britain was conferred upon him.