Andrew Plummer

Andrew Plummer ( * September 23, 1697 (according to other sources 1698 ), † April 16, 1756 in Edinburgh) was a Scottish physician and chemist. He was from 1726 to 1755 professor of chemistry at the University of Edinburgh.

Life and work

Andrew Plummer was the son of Gavin Plummer, a merchant and town councilor and treasurer of his church, and his wife Elizabeth. Andrew had three siblings, Joannet, Elizabeth and Jean, who all came to him within four years on the world.

Plummer attended the Arts curriculum of the University of Edinburgh from 1712 to 1717, but did not graduate there. Then he began his medical education in Edinburgh, but finished it in Leyden. So he enrolled on 5 September 1720 to study medicine at the University of Leyden (Netherlands). His studies ended Plummer with a medical degree at Leyden on Thursday 23 July 1722. The title of his doctoral thesis was Dissertatio medica de inauguralis phthisi pulmonali à catarrho orta.

He returned on February 25, 1724 back to Scotland and passed his exams at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. This qualification was absolutely necessary to practice as a doctor in Edinburgh. On November 3, 1724, he was together with the doctors Andrew Sinclair ( 1726-1757 ), added John Innes ( 1726-1755 ) and John Rutherford as a member of the Royal College. Plummer, Rutherford, Sinclair and Innes acquired at the end of Robertson 's Close about 100 meters from the University of a house where she gave lectures and a laboratory established.

In chemistry he created reflections on attractive and repulsive forces that are involved in the development of chemical body (chemical affinity). These ideas had an influence on his successor William Cullen and Joseph Black.

Plummer's pills

He developed the so-called " Plummer's pills" ( " Plummer's pills "), a mixture of calomel and antimony sulfide with guaiac. The pills were originally used for the treatment of psoriasis, and later to anti-syphilitic treatment.

In The Book of Health. A compendium of domestic medicine. (London, 1828) found a guide for the preparation of Plummer's pills. The following formulation is described:

. "(...) Dr Plummer's pills - Take of calomel, fifteen grains; precipitate sulphurate of antimony, fifteen grains; gum guaiacum, half a drachm: rub them in a mortar together for ten minutes, then, with a little canned, then form into fifteen pills. On to be taken every night and morning. (...) "

Works (selection)

• Dissertatio medica de inauguralis phthisi pulmonali à catarrho orta. (1722)
• Remarks on chemical solutions and precipitations. G. Hamilton and J. Balfour, Edinburgh ( 1754)
• Experiment on neutral salts, compounded of different acid liquors, and alcaline salts, fixes and volatile. G. Hamilton and J. Balfour, Edinburgh ( 1754)