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Memoir of the Life and Writings of Robert Whytt, MD Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh http://journals.cambridge.org/TRE Additional services for Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh: Email alerts: Click here Subscriptions: Click here Commercial reprints: Click here Terms of use : Click here XII.—Memoir of the Life and Writings of Robert Whytt, M.D., Professor of Medicine in the University of Edinburgh from 1747 to 1766. William Seller Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh / Volume 23 / Issue 01 / January 1862, pp 99 - 131 DOI: 10.1017/S0080456800018482, Published online: 17 January 2013 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0080456800018482 How to cite this article: William Seller (1862). XII.—Memoir of the Life and Writings of Robert Whytt, M.D., Professor of Medicine in the University of Edinburgh from 1747 to 1766.. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 23, pp 99-131 doi:10.1017/ S0080456800018482 Request Permissions : Click here Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/TRE, IP address: 130.126.162.126 on 11 Mar 2015 ( 99 ) XII.—Memoir of the Life and Writings of ROBERT WHYTT, M.D., Professor of Medicine in the University of Edinburgh from 1747 to 1766. By WILLIAM SELLER, M.D., F.R.S.E., Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. (Read 7th April 1862.) It does not always happen that the memory of inquirers into nature, who have the merit or the fortune to strike first into a right path, is cherished as it deserves. This remark applies forcibly to the eminent person, whether regarded as a physiologist or as a physician, of whose life aud labours a brief memoir is now laid before the Society. The name of ROBERT WHYTT was familiar to his contemporaries both at home and abroad. Increase of distance should hardly yet have dimmed its lustre. Yet, in proportion as the views which he initiated have expanded more and more in growing to maturity, the less and less is heard of their author. Biography—which never did WHYTT great justice—begins already to put him aside. A few particulars of his life, with a catalogue of his works, have hitherto been common in books of that description, principally in those of Germany and France. In some newer French biographies his name has dropped out. But of a late Edinburgh Biographical Dictionary, extending to not a few volumes, while restricted to the lives of eminent Scotsmen, it will hardly obtain credit that an early luminary of the rising University, conspicuous among the European leaders of medical science during a busy period of the eighteenth century, should, amidst a cloud of mediocrity, be there sought for in vain. ROBERT WHYTT, it may be said in defence, stands among the numerous followers of STAHL, who ascribed the phenomena of life to the operation of a rational prin- ciple ; while history contents itself with recording the views of the master, with- out burdening its pages with the peculiarities of the disciple. But to place WHYTT among the followers of STAHL is to misinterpret the most essential points of his belief. Nor is this error an unlikely source of the scanty justice awarded to his merits. He, beyond doubt, embraced ideas subversive of STAHL'S doc- trines—ideas which have become the starting-point of views entering largely into the present aspect of physiological science. In common, it is true, not only with the physiologists of the Stahlian school, but with those of all the preceding schools of physiology from HIPPOCRATES downwards, WHYTT traced animal movements to an anima or psyche; but he differed from STAHL, to borrow the description of HALLER, SO widely, that he regarded such movements as being the immediate result of a stimulus, without any reason, intention, or consciousness on the part of the anima. VOL. XXIII. PART I. 2 E 100 DR SELLER'S MEMOIR OF THE But if the sum of WHYTT'S doctrine be that an impression conveyed by nerves to the central nervous organs excite involuntary animal movements, by a physi- ological necessity, without reason, intention, or consciousness, what is that doc- trine but a comprehensive expression for the reflex action of the spinal cord and brain, if it be not also an approach to the still larger generalization which repre- sents an organic body as consisting essentially of two layers, an outer for the reception of impressions, and an inner for the origination of movement ? " Quod autem est animal id motu cietur interiore et suo," is the quotation from CICERO prefixed to WHYTT'S earlier work on this subject—words which, as used by him, seem to embody the rudiment of this last idea. But enough of preface. ROBERT WHYTT was born at Edinburgh, September 6th, in the year 1714. His father was ROBERT WHYTT of Bennochy, a member of the Scottish Bar. He was a posthumous child, brought into the world six months after his father's death. He was still under seven years of age when he lost his mother. His mother's name was MURRAY. She was the daughter of ANTONY MURRAY of Woodend, in Perthshire. The WHYTTS of Bennochy were sprung from an old Fifeshire family, the WHYTTS of Mawe and Kilmaron. WHYTT'S father was the grandson of the first possessor of Bennochy. The genealogy of the family is to be found in BURKE'S " Landed Gentry," under the head " WHYTE MELVILLE," for a reason to be afterwards stated. At an early age WHYTT was sent to the University of St Andrews, where, by his application to study, he appears to have distinguished himself among his fellows. Having obtained the degree of Master of Arts at the age of sixteen, he repaired to Edinburgh to engage in the study of medicine. Two years before, by the death of his elder brother, he had succeeded to the family estate. In the year 1730, when he commenced medicine, the Medical School of the University of Edinburgh was but recently founded. From the year 1720 the first MONRO had delivered regular courses of lectures on anatomy to still increasing audiences. Some years before WHYTT began his studies, the Town Council of Edinburgh (1726) had commissioned four Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians, namely, RUTHERFORD, SINCLAIR, PLUMMER, and INNES to teach medicine. Two years earlier, PORTERFIELD had been appointed by the same authority to the Professor- ship of the Institutes and the Practice of Medicine, but it is not certain that he ever delivered lectures. Soon after (1730), the Senatus Academicus recognised five professors as a Medical Faculty. About the same time, the Town Council instituted also a professorship of Midwifery in favour of Mr JOSEPH GIBSON, sur- geon, known as the City Professor. WHYTT devoted himself in particular to the study of anatomy under MONRO. He appears to have spent three or four years in Edinburgh, engaged in the acqui- sition of medical knowledge. LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ROBERT WHYTT, M.D. 101 There are no incidents of his life recorded in the course of his studies; but among the medical manuscripts in the library of the Edinburgh College of Phy- sicians, there is a book of notes taken by WHYTT, from the lectures of GEORGE YOUNG, who published, in the year 1758, a " Treatise on Opium." These lec- tures are partly clinical discourses on the cases which occurred in YOUNG'S private practice; partly observations on diseases in general; partly discussions on the theory of medicine. The manuscript is of considerable extent, and sufficiently curious as a medical antiquity. It was purchased at the sale of WHYTT'S books after his death, by Dr JOHN BOSWELL, who had been WHYTT'S fellow-student under YOUNG, and came into the possession of the College along with a number of books presented by the family of the late Dr ABERCEOMBIE. Proceeding to London, probably in the year 1734, WHYTT became a pupil of CHESELDEN, while he visited the wards of the London hospitals. Thence, passing over to Paris, he occupied himself with the lectures and dissections of WINSLOW, and frequented the hospitals La Charite and the Hotel Dieu. He next went to Leyden to hearBoERHAAVE, now advanced in years, and his namesake ALBINUS, still in the prime of life. It is well known that the name of ALBINUS was Latinised from " WHITE," probably in its German form " WEISS," as ALBINUS was of German extraction. Had ALBINUS been a native Dutchman, he might not only have been WHYTT'S namesake, but of the same lineage; for, though the WHYTTS of Fife claim descent from the " LES BLANCS" of France, the presumption is far greater that, in common probably with the WHYTES of this island in general, they repre- sent the WITTS of Friesland, one of whom, WITTA the son of WICTE (VETTA VICTI) the grandfather of HENGIST and HORSA, according to the probable conclu- sion of Professor SIMPSON in his very ingenious memoir entitled " The Catstane," lies buried beneath a gigantic monolith of greenstone on the banks of the Almond, but a few miles from Edinburgh. It is not recorded, however, that either the Professor or the pupil recognised in the other any sign of relationship. It will come to be considered hereafter whether he then learned from ALBINUS a particular of the anatomy of the nerves for the assertion of which WHYTT'S writings were for a long period singular. After six years employed in the study of medicine, he took the degree of Doctor of Medicine at Rheims, in April 1736. At that time, for what reason does not appear, Rheims was much resorted to for degrees in medicine.
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