Air, Disease, and Improvement in Eighteenth-Century Britain Sir John Pringle (1707-1782) by Erich Weidenhammer A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology University of Toronto © Copyright by Erich Weidenhammer 2014 Air, Disease, and Improvement in Eighteenth-Century Britain: Sir John Pringle (1707-1782) Erich Weidenhammer Doctor of Philosophy Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology 2014 Abstract The Scottish-born physician John Pringle (1707-1782) achieved remarkable fame as a natural philosopher, eventually becoming a physician to King George III and President of the Royal Society of London. He did so largely on the basis of a single major work. The Observations on the Diseases of the Army (1752), founded on his experience as an Army physician during the War of the Austrian Succession and the Jacobite Rebellion, was a guide to the diseases facing soldiers in Northern Europe. It also examined the nature, prevention, and treatment of epidemic fevers that afflicted large groups living in close proximity. Pringle believed, like many in his day, that epidemic fever was associated with the process of putrefaction taking place within the body. A member of the Royal Society, he performed a series of experiments on putrefaction which were subsequently appended to his Observations. These investigations earned him the Society’s Copley medal in 1752, were widely emulated across ii Europe, and established him as a natural philosopher of note. They represented, I argue, a promising approach to a problem of significant concern to early modern European society. This thesis examines both the nature of Pringle’s claims and the manner in which they shaped his reputation as a natural philosopher. Particular attention is paid to Pringle’s Scottish education and early career among the medical community at Edinburgh. The first two chapters discuss, respectively, the observational and the experimental foundation of his medical claims. The final two examine his contribution within the context of eighteenth-century British society, especially its relation to the culture of British natural philosophy and the interests of his Hanoverian patrons. A prominent figure within the royal court, the Royal Society, and the military, Pringle became a patron to others whose work furthered his interests. He consequently played a significant role in the emergence of the Chemical Revolution. iii Acknowledgments I thank, first of all, my wife, Muriel, whose love, example, and support have permitted me to complete this thesis. I thank my family, whose faith and encouragement guided me through many early years of academic difficulty. I also thank my friends and fellow graduate students, especially Victor Boantza, John Christopolous, Gwyndaf Garbutt, and Yves Bourque. I am particularly grateful to my friend Brendan Cook, whose appreciation for the history of the Western tradition continues to inspire me. As a teenager in Saskatchewan, I could not have imagined that I would eventually follow him to graduate school in Toronto. I thank Larry Stewart, a mentor, who first introduced me to the notion that ideas about nature bear the indelible mark of society and culture. I thank David Pantalony, whose generosity and enthusiasm for scientific material culture supports a vital academic community in Canada which I am delighted to take part in. I thank Roger Emerson, an exemplary patron of his discipline, who graciously places his remarkable knowledge of eighteenth-century Scotland at the service of young scholars. I would like to acknowledge the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, a humane and supportive community. I sincerely appreciate the respect that the IHPST staff and faculty have shown for student initiatives. I wish particularly to recognize Muna Salloum, whose importance to the Institute cannot be overstated. It has also been a privilege to spend these years among my fellow IHPST graduate students. I would like especially to thank Ari Gross, Paul Greenham, and the many others who have helped to build the University of Toronto Scientific Instruments Collection. iv My greatest debt is to my supervisors, Trevor H. Levere and Lucia Dacome. Both have been generous, helpful, conscientious, and above all patient, for which I am extremely grateful. Both belong to an essential, and often unacknowledged, subset of scholars who commit themselves fully to guiding graduate students through a lengthy and challenging process. v Table of Contents Contents Acknowledgments .......................................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................... vi List of Figures .............................................................................................................................. viii Chapter 1: Introduction: Why Study John Pringle .......................................................................... 1 1.1 John Pringle’s Life and Work ........................................................................................... 12 1.2 Framing Concepts ............................................................................................................. 24 1.2.1 Sociability, Patronage, and Influence ................................................................... 24 1.2.2 Air and Disease ..................................................................................................... 34 1.2.3 The Improver and the Project ............................................................................... 39 Chapter 2: Authority and Observation in Enlightenment Medicine ............................................. 43 2.1 Observation and medical community ............................................................................... 51 2.2 Hippocratic Thinking in Enlightenment Medicine ........................................................... 66 2.3 Pringle’s Observational Project ........................................................................................ 83 Chapter 3: Chemistry and Experiment in Eighteenth Century Medicine ..................................... 95 3.1 Pringle’s Experimental Account of Putrefaction ............................................................ 101 3.2 Medicine, Chemistry, and Pharmaceutical Knowledge .................................................. 110 3.3 Chemistry and the Body in the Early Eighteenth Century. ............................................. 122 3.4 Air and the Putrid in Pringle’s Experimental Work ........................................................ 133 Chapter 4: Improvement in Eighteenth-Century Britain ............................................................ 150 4.1 The Improvement of Scotland ........................................................................................ 158 4.2 John Pringle Makes Good in London ............................................................................. 167 4.3 Patronage and Credibility ............................................................................................... 181 vi Chapter 5: Sociability and Influence. .......................................................................................... 197 5.1 Sociability and Power ..................................................................................................... 204 5.2 Advancing antiseptics within the Army and Navy ......................................................... 214 5.3 Patronage and Influence within the Royal Society ......................................................... 226 5.4 Court and Coffeehouse: .................................................................................................. 244 Conclusion: Thinking about science and medicine in the eighteenth century ............................ 260 vii List of Figures P. 12 Figure 1: Portrait of Sir John Pringle. P. 71 Figure 2: Medical Essays and Observations, Revised and Published by a Society in Edinburgh. vol. 1, pp. 14-15. P. 98 Figure 3: A List of works employing Pringle’s experimental approach to investigating putrefaction. P. 103 Figure 4: Pringle’s ranking of salts according to their antiseptic properties. P. 143 Figure 5: Table from David Macbride’s Experimental Essays on the Following Subjects… (1764), pp. 4-5. P. 146 Figure 6: Illustration from David Macbride’s Experimental Essays on the Following Subjects… (1764), pp. 72-73. P. 172 Figure 7: Illustration of the windmill powering the Hales’s ventilator installed at Newgate. P. 198 Figure 8: A list of books dedicated to Pringle as well as memberships in foreign societies granted to him. viii 1 1 Chapter 1: Introduction: Why Study John Pringle The Scottish-born physician John Pringle (1707-1782) has been known to posterity mainly for a single major work, the Observations on the Diseases of the Army in Camp and Garrison (1752). In it he addressed the epidemic diseases that afflicted large groups living in close proximity, notably dysentery, what we today call typhoid fever, and scurvy. In the first systematic work on army medicine to be published in the early modern period, Pringle gathered observational and experimental evidence to assign these diseases to the passage of a putrid ferment between the body’s surroundings and its interior. He proposed a reform of military