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Robert Sibbald J. Roy. Coll. Phycns Vol. 10 No. 4 July 1976 Robert Sibbald VERONICA F. BARKER, MA, Ni?iezuells Medical Library, Dundee, and IAN A. D. BOUCHIER, MD, FRCP, Department of Medicine, University of Dundee To have enthusiasm paralleled by ability and to live long enough to see one's achievements stand the test of time is a brave aspiration. To make a single contribution in a single science is the hope of every researcher, but to make substantial advances in several sciences is beyond the scope of all but a few in any generation. However, medical men have a notable record in this respect, and one ?0 such was Edinburgh-born Sir Robert Sibbald. Sibbald came to our attention during investigations concerning medical practitioners who have had close associations with whales and whaling. His contribution to this field was immediately clear but it then became apparent that his unique talents went well beyond that of caetology to make him a man of distinction whose contributions to science are too little known. v Sibbald was attracted to the medical profession at a time when there were less . than fifty physicians in Scotland, not a hospital worthy of the name, and medical ignorance rampant and extreme. Educated at Cupar, Fife, the High School, Edinburgh, and Edinburgh University, Sibbald came of landed gentry stock who experienced hard times following Monk's sacking of the city of Dundee, v Knowledge of the family debts obliged Sibbald to study assiduously, earning the nickname Diogenes in dolo, but such application was to be the basis of his achievements in medicine and natural history. He graduated MA in 1659 and continued his studies at Leyden, then the most : celebrated medical school in Europe. In 1661 he presented his MD thesis De variis tabis speciebus and continued his studies in Paris and Angers where he obtained his patent to practise medicine on 17th July 1662, at the age of 21. He returned to Britain, staying in London to enlarge his medical knowledge, and subsequently arrived in Edinburgh to his own practice on 30th October 1662. His first achievement was outstanding and enduring?the establishment of a botanic garden in Edinburgh. In Paris, Sibbald had been influenced towards natural substances as therapeutic :\ agents and on arrival in Edinburgh his interest was strengthened by a close friendship with Sir Andrew Balfour, a keen naturalist. A local laird, Patrick Murray, of Livingstone, West Lothian, had already established a botanic garden at 1 his home, and to both Sibbald and Balfour, Murray gave every encouragement to Sir Robert Sibbald (1641-1722). establish a medicinal garden in Edinburgh. Murray was the main source of the first supply of plants to stock the garden established by Sibbald and Balfour in 1670. This first garden was on land belonging to Holyrood House. Here, more than 800 plants were tended by a capable James Sutherland, subsequently Professor of Botany at Edinburgh University and King's Botanist in Scotland. The garden was developed as part of a larger plan, to organise the medical profession. This was set in motion by engaging the interest of Edinburgh physicians in the use, maintenance and development of the physic garden. Their yearly subscriptions made it possible to import foreign plants and to extend the educational value of the garden to apprentice surgeons and apothecaries. However, some surgeon apothecaries opposed the garden, seeing that the inception of a powerful College of Physicians could follow from such a venture. The surgeon apothecaries were understandably concerned for their position, but Sibbald was concerned for a greater good, the enhancement of the quality of medical care in Scotland. His mode of attack was judiciously chosen. The study of botany was then considered, along with anatomy, the most important preliminary to a scientific 414 knowledge of medicine. As the surgeons developed the study of anatomy it was the province of the physicians to develop the study of botany. The study of botany in Scotland originated in the work of Sibbald, Balfour and Sutherland. Balfour was an ardent and liberal collector of botanical specimens, Sibbald devoted most of his attention to native plants, whilst Sutherland concerned himself with foreign items. They made an effective team, so much so that the surgeon apothecaries came round to supporting the work, together with many of the leading physicians in Edinburgh, and other prominent influential citizens. The purchase of a lease on the gardens of Trinity Hospital and adjacent grounds was now possible, and it was from this garden, situated on a site later to be occupied by the Waverley Station, that Sutherland continued the practical teaching of botany for the University. The plants from Holy rood were transferred and 1,000 other specimens obtained from home and abroad. One immediate benefit was the supply of fresh ^ and genuine drug constituents. In this respect a plot was specifically organised as a place of instruction for medical students, where plants used in medicine were arranged in alphabetical order, as in dispensaries. In 1685, Sibbald became the first Professor of Medicine in the University of Edinburgh. Thus, his first exercise in scientific achievement came to be a sturdy beginning of the study of botany in Scotland, and the beginning of the much needed improvement in medical standards. An object of national pride was created and the cohesion of the Scottish physicians initiated. At this time the patronage of the fourth Earl of Perth, James Drummond, led to royal favours: Charles II made Sibbald Physician-in-Ordinary in Scotland. He was also appointed Geographer Royal in 1682, with an obligation to publish a natural history of Scotland together with a geographical account. These duties n were the source of great pain and expense to Sibbald but in 1684 he published his most detailed work Scotia Illustrata, assisted by John Adair, the cartographer. Included in this work is an enumeration of nearly 500 plant species as well as colour forms and varieties. Sibbald made the first attempt at indigenous botany and included two species recorded for the first time as British, the alpine Sibbaldia ( procumbens and the lovage Ligusticum Scoticum. The genus Sibbaldia was named by Linnaeus in honour of Robert Sibbald in 1737, and the Sibbaldia procumbens is the motif of the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, to commemorate the of |" honour the Garden's founder. t Sibbald was also particularly interested in Roman Scotland and his work in this field promoted interest at a time when such studies were in their infancy. I Of the geographical account several volumes were published and, had it been I completed, it would have been the precursor of the Statistical Account of Scotland prepared by Sir John Sinclair more than a century later. In this, through 1 lack of time and money, Sibbald did not achieve his goal but his literary output i was nevertheless substantial. In 1685 Sibbald was made Physician to King James VII and II but neither of his royal patrons was monetarily generous to him. He subsidised the royal work, with additional financial support coming from the gentry and the general public. In 1680 Sibbald instituted further schemes to advance medical knowledge and the quality of medical care. Beginning with fortnightly conferences in his own lodgings in Bishop's Land, Carrubber's Close, Edinburgh, he encouraged clinical case discussion and an early version of the journal club in medicine and natural history. These meetings amounted to a medical society, antedating the founding of a College of Physicians towards which Sibbald was working. After substantial hard work and considerable expense on the part of Sibbald and his colleagues the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh was established by Royal Charter on St Andrew's Day, 29th November 1681. The College flourishes, upholding and extending Sibbald's seventeenth century aims in the twentieth century. Sibbald followed this achievement with another in the same vein, by helping to initiate an early meeting of the College to form a committee for the preparation of a pharmacopoeia. Such a publication was urgently needed, as much that was passed off on patients was inferior and ineffectual, sold at exorbitant cost and not controlled by a set of standards binding on sellers in Scotland. The College of Physicians claimed certain supervisory powers over the apothecaries by virtue of the College Charter, later reinforced by the Act of Parliament of 16th June 1685 which ratified the Charter. In 1683 the Pharmacopoeia E din burgen sis was licensed for printing, but the malice and obstruction of a faction of the College prevented actual publication until 1699. (The Phannacopoeia Londinensis of 1618 was not binding on the apothecaries of Scotland.) The Edinburgh Phannacopoeia was in use through twelve editions and twenty printings in Great Britain, together with printings in Latin, Dutch and German for the continental market. It was only superseded by the introduction of the General Medical Council's British Pharmacopoeia in 1864. Sibbald received the approbation of the College during his lifetime by being elected its second President on 4th December 1684. He was to hold the positions of Secretary, Councillor, Censor, and member of nearly all the committees. He was unable to be re-elected President because of the barrier of signing the Test of Faith, a barrier created by his acceptance of the Roman Catholic faith, but after his return to the Reformed Church Sibbald was re-elected to the College Council and took up the attendant responsibilities. As an examiner he was particularly concerned that the examination which licensed a candidate to practise should contain practical as well as theoretical features. Sibbald had a large medical practice 'with the best in the kingdom' but the College also took upon itself the obligation to provide medical care for the sick poor.
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