Robert Sibbald

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Sir Robert Sibbald (born April 15, 1641 in Leslie , Fife ; † August 1722 ) was a Scottish doctor and scientist .

Live and act

Robert Sibbald was the son of David Sibbald (around 1602-1660), a brother of Sir James Sibbald († 1650), and Margaret Boyd. In 1650 he began learning Latin at Cupar's town school , but moved to Dundee with his parents the following year . He began studying at the University of Edinburgh . In March 1660 he went to Holland and completed courses in anatomy and surgery at the University of Leiden . Here he received his doctorate in medicine in 1661. Via Paris , Angers , where he stayed for a year, and London , he returned to Edinburgh in October 1662 .

Together with Andrew Balfour (1630–1694) he laid out the Edinburgh Botanical Gardens in 1670 . Sibbald belonged to a group of doctors who in 1681 campaigned for Charles II to found the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh .

1682 proposed him Jacob Stuart , Duke of York , to the Knight Bachelor ("Sir").

Encouraged by James Drummond, 4th Earl of Perth (1648-1716), he collected material for a geographical, statistical and natural history description of Scotland . This was published in 1684 under the title Scotia Illustrata . By Drummond's influence he was appointed "Royal Geographer of Scotland" on September 30, 1682. Later he also became a doctor to Charles II.

In December 1684 he was elected President of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and in March 1685 by order of the City of Edinburgh first professor of medicine at the university.

In 1692 Robert Sibbald was the first to describe the blue whale .

Honors

Carl von Linné named the genus Sibbaldia of the rose family (Rosaceae) in his honor . Sibbald described a plant of this genus for the first time in Scotia Illustrata , the Alpine yellow fever Sibbaldia procumbens . Also the plant genera Sibbaldianthe Juz. and Sibbaldiopsis Rydb. from the rose family (Rosaceae) are named in honor of Sibbald.

Fonts (selection)

  • Disputatio medica de variis tabis speciebus ... Leiden, 1661 - Dissertation under Frans de Le Boë (1614–1672)
  • An account of the Scotish atlas, or, The description of Scotland ancient & modern by His Sacred Majestie's special command to be published presently by Sir Robert Sibbald DM His Majestie's physician in ordinary, and geographer for his ancient kingdom of Scotland . Edinburgh, 1683
  • Scotia illustrata: sive, Prodromus historiae naturalis: in quo regionis natura, incolarum ingenia & mores, morbi iisque medendi methodus, & medicina indigena accurratè explicantur ... Edinburgh, 1684
  • Phalainologia nova sive observationes de rarioribus quibusdam balaenis in Scotiæ littus nuper ejectis in quibus nuper conspectae balaenae per genera & species, secundum characteres from ipsa naturâ impressos distribuuntur, quaedam nunc primum describuntur; errores etiam tirea descriptas deteguntur, & breves de dentium, spermatis ceti, & ambræ griseae ortu, naturâ & usu dissertationes traduntur . Edinburgh, 1692
  • Auctarium musaei Balfouriani, e musæo Sibbaldiano, sive, Enumeratio & descriptio rerum rariorum, tàm naturalium quam artificialium, tàm domesticarum quàm exoticarum quas Robertus Sibbaldus MD eques auratus, Academie Edinburgenae donavit: ad quasi natural manuductio brevisiam . Edinburgh, 1697
  • The history, ancient and modern, of the sheriffdoms of Fife and Kinross: with the description of both, and of the firths of Forth and Tay, and the islands in them ... with an account of the natural products of the land and waters . Edinburgh, 1710 ( digitized in Google book search)

proof

literature

  • James Britten, George S. Boulger: A Biographical Index of Deceased British and Irish Botanists . London 1931.
  • William Anderson: The Scottish Nation . 3 volumes, Edinburgh 1863.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The royal decree establishing the college is dated November 29, 1681.
  2. ^ Carl von Linné: Critica Botanica . Leiden 1737, p. 94
  3. ↑ Carl von Linné: Genera Plantarum . Leiden 1742, p. 134
  4. ↑ James Edward Smith , James Sowerby : English Botany, or colored figures of British plants, with their essential characters, synonyms, and places of growth. To which will be added occasional remarks . London, 1801, Volume 13, p. 897
  5. ↑ Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymous plant names - Extended Edition. Part I and II. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin , Freie Universität Berlin , Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-946292-26-5 doi: 10.3372 / epolist2018 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Sibbald, Robert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Scottish doctor and naturalist
DATE OF BIRTH April 15, 1641
PLACE OF BIRTH at Leslie , Fife
DATE OF DEATH August 1722