Robert Whytt

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Robert Whytt

Robert Whytt (born September 6, 1714 in Edinburgh , † April 15, 1766 ibid) was a British doctor and early neuroscientist . He founded the neurophysiological concept of the reflex .

Life

His father, Robert Whytt of Bennochie, a member of the Scottish Bar, Scottish Bar , died six months before Whytt was born. His mother Jean, daughter of Antony Murray of Woodend, Perthshire, died when he was six years old. Robert Whytt was the second son in the family.

Whytt completed his master's at the University of St Andrews in 1730. The doctor of medicine , he acquired (MD) in 1736 in Reims and in 1737 at St. Andrews. In 1738 he became a member of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (FRCPE). He was its president from 1763 to 1766. In 1747 he became “Professor of Theory of Medicine” at the University of Edinburgh . In 1752 he was made a Fellow of the British Royal Society (FRS). Whytt studied medicine in Edinburgh, Paris and Leiden . His work focused on research into diseases of the nervous system, reflexes, tubercular meningitis, bladder stones and hysteria . From 1761 he was the personal physician of King George III of Scotland . In 1763 he became President of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

He was married twice. His first wife was Helen Robertson, the sister of James Robertson (1710–1788), a British officer and governor of the province of New York . She died in 1741 without leaving children together. In 1743 he married again, Luise Balfour, the daughter of James Balfour from Pilrig in Midlothian , she died in 1764. Whytt had six children with his second wife.

His remains were buried in a public funeral at Greyfriars Kirkyard .

Services

Robert Whytt established the reputation of Scottish medicine as the predecessor of William Cullen . In 1751 he created the first one, from supernatural ideas such as B. Somatic-neurological medicine largely freed from terms such as spiritus animalis . In particular, he confirmed that movement can be set in motion by a nerve impulse without being triggered by a higher will or an external stimulus; d. H. there are “vital” or “involuntary motions” without “express consciousness”, that is, without a directing authority like the soul of the steel, highly regarded by Whytt . The same principle of life exists in animals as well as in humans and is causal in humans as well for the mind. Because of these views, there was a scholarly dispute with Albrecht von Haller . As a “neurologist” Whytt, who experimented mainly with decapitated frogs, was the first to describe some extremely important reflexes such as the pupillary reaction (1751) to light (with pupil rigidity and observed for the first time by Whytt in 1768 after the destruction of the four-hill region or the corpora quadrigemina of the brain ), Sneezing, choking, coughing, bladder emptying reflex , erection and ejaculation . Whytt also wrote the only significant book on hysteria of the second half of the century, in which he proved to be a forerunner of a neurologization of psychiatric issues.

Works (selection)

  • Essay on the Vital and Other Involuntary Motions of Animals (Edinburgh 1751)
  • An Essay on the Virtue of Lime-Water in the Cure of the Stone (1752)
  • Physiological Essays (1755)
  • Review of the Controversy Concerning the Sensibility and Moving Power of the Parts of Men and Other Animals (1761)
  • Nervous, Hypochondriac or Hysteric Diseases, (1764)
  • Observations on the Nature, Causes and Cure of Those Disorders Which Have Been Commonly Called Nervous, Hypochondriac or Hysteric (1767)
  • Observations on Dropsy of the Brain (1768)
  • The Works of Robert Whytt, MD (1768)

literature

  • RK French, Robert Whytt, the Soul, and Medicine, London: The Wellcome Institute of the History of Medicine, 1969; Biography.
  • Bettina A. Bryan: Whytt, Robert. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 1485 f.
  • H. Hürzeler: Robert Whytt (1716–1766) and his physiological writings. Zurich 1973.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ John Talbott: Biography. 1970 (English)
  2. ^ Concise Dictionary of National Biography . OUP, Oxford 1995, p. 3211
  3. ^ A b George Stronach:  Whytt, Robert . In: Sidney Lee (Ed.): Dictionary of National Biography . Volume 61:  Whichcord - Williams. MacMillan & Co, Smith, Elder & Co., New York City / London 1900, pp 174 - 175 (English).
  4. ^ Robert Whytt: Essay on the Vital and Other Involuntary Motions of Animals . 1751, p. 290
  5. ^ Bettina A. Bryan: Whytt, Robert. 2005, p. 1485.
  6. ↑ Gerhard Ritter: On the history of the development of neurological semiology . Neurologist 37: 510, 1966
  7. ^ Robert Whytt: Nervous, Hypochondriac or Hysteric Diseases . 1764
  8. ^ Klaus Dörner : Citizens and Irre. On the social history and sociology of science in psychiatry . [1969] Fischer Taschenbuch, Bücher des Wissens, Frankfurt / M. 1975, ISBN 3-436-02101-6 ; Pp. 62, 71-73, 79 f., 83, 90, 122, 203, 322
personal data
SURNAME Whytt, Robert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English doctor
DATE OF BIRTH September 6, 1714
PLACE OF BIRTH Edinburgh
DATE OF DEATH April 15, 1766
Place of death Edinburgh