Robert Sibbald

Sir Robert Sibbald (* April 15, 1641 in Leslie, Fife, † August 1722 ) was a Scottish surgeon and naturalist.

Life and work

Robert Sibbald is the son of David Sibbald (around 1602-1660 ), a brother of Sir James Sibbald († 1650), and Margaret Boyd. 1650 he began Latin at the town of Cupar school to learn, but moved with his parents in the following year to Dundee. He started at the University of Edinburgh to study. In March 1660, he went to Holland and graduated from the University of Leiden courses in anatomy and surgery. Here he in 1661 received his doctorate of medicine. About Paris, Angers, where he remained a year, and London, he returned in October 1662 to Edinburgh.

Together with Andrew Balfour (1630-1694) he put 1670 in the Botanical Garden Edinburgh. Sibbald was one of a group of doctors who in 1681 campaigned for Charles II to the founding of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

1682 awarded him Jacob Stuart, the Duke of York the honorary title of Sir.

Inspired by the Earl of Perth, James Drummond (1648-1716), he collected material for a geographical, statistical and natural historical description of Scotland. This appeared in 1684 under the title Scotia Illustrata. He was appointed " Royal Geographer of Scotland " on September 30, 1682 by Drummonds influence. Later, he is also a physician of Charles II

In December 1684 he was elected president of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, and in March 1685 decision of the city of Edinburgh the first professor of medicine at the University.

1692 Robert Sibbald described as the first blue whale.

Ehrentaxon

Carl Linnaeus named in his honor the genus Sibbaldia the plants of the rose family ( Rosaceae ). Sibbald had described in Scotia Illustrata for the first time a plant of this genus, the alpine Gelbling Sibbaldia procumbens.

Works (selection)

  • Disputatio medica de variis tabis speciebus ... Leiden, 1661 - dissertation 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 by Sir Robert Sibbald presently DM His Majestie 's physician in ordinary, and geographer for his ancient kingdom of Scotland. Edinburgh, 1683
  • Scotia illustrata: immersive, Prodromus historiae naturalis: in quo regionis natura, incolarum ingenia & mores, morbi iisque medendi methodus, & medicina indigena accurratè explicantur ... Edinburgh, 1684
  • Phalainologia nova immersive observationes de rarioribus quibusdam balaenis in Scotiæ littus nuper ejectis in quibus nuper conspectae Balaenae by genera and species secundum characteres from ipsa natura impressos distribuuntur, quaedam nunc primum describuntur; errores etiam tirea descriptas deteguntur, & Breves de dentium, spermatis ceti, & Ambrae griseae ortu, Natura & usu Dissertationes traduntur. Edinburgh, 1692
  • Auctarium musaei Balfouriani, e musæo Sibbaldiano, immersive, Enumeratio & descriptio rerum rariorum, Tam naturalium quam artificialium, Tam Quam domesticarum exoticarum quas Robertus Sibbaldus MD eques auratus, Academie Edinburgenae donavit: quae quasi manuductio brevis est, ad historiam naturalem. Edinburgh, 1697
  • The history, ancient and modern, of the sheriff doms 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

Swell

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