WHYTT, Robert, an eminent physician, born at Edinburgh on the 6th September 1714, was the son of Robert Whytt, Esq. of Bennochy, advocate. This gentleman died six months before the birth of this son, who had also the misfortune to be deprived of his mother before he had attained the seventh year of his age. After receiving the first rudiments of school-education, he was sent to the university of St Andrews; and after the usual course of instruction there, in classical, philosophical, and mathematical learning, he came to Edinburgh, where he entered upon the study of medicine under those eminent medical teachers Monro, Rutherford, St Clair, Plummer, Altson, and Innes. After learning what was to be acquired at this university, in the prosecution of his studies he visited foreign countries; and after attending the most eminent teachers at London, Paris, and Leyden, he took the degree of doctor of physic at Reims in 1736, being then in the twenty-second year of his age. Upon his return to his native country, he had the same degree conferred upon him by the university of St Andrews, where he had before taken, with applause, the degree of master of arts.

Not long afterwards, in the year 1737, he was admitted a licentiate by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh; and the year following he was raised to the rank of a fellow. From the time of his admission as a licentiate, he entered upon the practice of physic at Edinburgh; and the reputation which he acquired for medical learning, pointed him out as a fit successor in the first vacant chair in the university. Accordingly, when Dr St Clair resigned his academical appointments, Dr Whytt was elected his successor on the 20th of June 1746, and began his first course of the institutions of medicine at the commencement of the next winter session. In 1752, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London; in 1761, he was appointed first physician to the king in Scotland; and in 1764, he was chosen president of the Royal College of Physicians at Edinburgh.

But the fame which Dr Whytt acquired as a practitioner and teacher of medicine, was not a little increased by the information which he communicated to the medical world in different publications. His celebrity as an author was still more extensive than his reputation as a professor. His first publication, “An Essay on the Vital and other Involuntary Motions of Animals,” although it had been begun soon after he had finished his course of medical education, did not come from the press till 1751, an interval of fifteen years from the time when he had finished his academical course, and taken his doctor’s degree; but the delay of this publication was fully compensated by the matter which it contained, and the improved form under which it appeared. The next subject which employed the pen of Dr Whytt was one of a nature more immediately practical. His “Essay on the Virtues of Lime-Water and Soap in the Cure of the Stone” first made its appearance in a separate volume in 1752. His third work, entitled “Physiological Essays,” was first published in the year 1755. This treatise consisted of two parts: lst, “An Inquiry into the Causes which promote the Circulation of the Fluids in the very small Vessels of Animals;” and 2dly, “Observations on the Sensibility and Irritability of the Parts of Men and other Animals, occasioned by Dr Haller’s treatise on that subject.” The former of these may be considered as an extension and farther illustration of the sentiments which he had already delivered in his Essay on the Vital Motions, while the latter was on a subject of a controversial nature. In both he displayed that acuteness of intellect and strength of judgment which appeared in his former writings.

From the time when his Physiological Essays were published, several years were probably employed by the author in preparing for the press a larger and perhaps a more important work than any yet mentioned, his “Observations on the Nature, Causes, and Cure of those Disorders which are commonly called nervous, hypochondriac, and [7:21:878]hysteric” The elaborate and useful work was published in the year 1764. The last of Dr Whytt’s writings is entitled “Observations on the Dropsy in the Brain.” This treatise did not appear till two years after his death, when all his other works were collected and published in one quarto volume, under the direction of his son and of his intimate friend the late Sir John Pringle. Besides these five works, he wrote many papers, which appeared in different publications; particularly in the Philosophical Transactions, the Medical Essays, the Medical Observations, and the Physical and Literary Essays.

At an early period of life, soon after he had settled as a medical practitioner in Edinburgh, he entered into the married state. His first wife was Miss Robertson, sister to General Robertson, governor of New York. By her he had two children, both of whom died in early infancy, and their mother did not long survive them. A few years after the death of his first wife, he married Miss Balfour, sister to James Balfour, Esq. of Pilrig. By her he had fourteen children, six of whom only survived him, three sons and three daughters. But his course of happiness was terminated by the death of his wife, which happened in the year 1764; and it is not improbable that this event had some share in hastening his own death, for in the beginning of the year 1765 his health was so far impaired that he became incapable of his former exertions. A tedious complication of chronical ailments at length terminated his life, on the 15th of April 1766, in the fifty-second year of his age.