Robert Sibbald
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Sir Robert Sibbald (15 April 1641 – August 1722) was a Scottish physician and antiquary.
Life
He was born in Edinburgh, the son of David Sibbald (brother of Sir James Sibbald) and Margaret Boyd (January 1606 – 10 July 1672). Educated at the Royal High School and the Universities of Edinburgh, Leiden, and Paris, he took his doctor's degree at the University of Angers in 1662, and soon afterwards settled as a physician working in Edinburgh. He resided at "Kipps Castle" near Linlithgow.[1] In 1667 with Sir Andrew Balfour he started the botanical garden in Edinburgh, and he took a leading part[2] in establishing the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, of which he was elected president in 1684.Template:Sfn Both Sibbald and Balfour were proponents of the Edinburgh Pharmacopoeia.
In 1682, Sibbald began assembling material for a projected two volume geographical description or atlas of Scotland, recruiting parish ministers and members of the nobility and gentry to assist him in the task. While the work was never published, many of the manuscripts describing aspects of the geography, natural history and antiquities of parts of Scotland have survived.[3]
In 1685 he was appointed the first professor of medicine at the University of Edinburgh. He was knighted, named Physician to the King, and appointed Geographer Royal in 1682.[4][5]
His numerous and miscellaneous writings deal with historical and antiquarian as well as with botanical and medical subjects.Template:Sfn He based many of his cartographical studies on the work of Timothy Pont.[6]
He is buried in Greyfriars Kirkyard in Edinburgh in a vault against the southern wall.
Sibbaldia procumbens[7] (Rosaceae), that Sibbald described and illustrated[8] in his book Scotia illustrata in 1684 (volume 2, tab. 6(1)), was named after him in 1753 by Carl Linnaeus.[9] Sibbaldia is a genus of about 13 species of flowering plants.[10] In 1941, the Russian botanist Sergei Vasilievich Juzepczuk (1893-1959) published Sibbaldianthe, also in the family Rosaceae, which has about 7 species.[11]
Taxonomy of the blue whale—Sibbaldus
Sibbald is also remembered for his study of whales.[12] Originally the blue whale was named after Sibbald, who first described it scientifically.
Although the blue whale is today usually classified as one of eight species in the genus Balaenoptera, one authority still places it in a separate monotypic genus, Sibbaldus,[13] but this is not widely accepted.
The blue whale was once commonly referred to as Sibbald's rorqual.
Works
Sibbald's historical and antiquarian works include:
- 1683: An Account of the Scottish Atlas. Folio, Edinburgh
- 1684: Scotia illustrata. Edinburgh
- 1699: Memoria Balfouriana; sive, Historia rerum, pro literis promovendis, gestarum a ... fratribus Balfouriis ... Jacobo ... et ... Andrea. Authore R.S.. Edinburgi: Typis Hæredum Andreæ Anderson
- 1699: Provision for the poor in time of dearth and scarcity
- 1710: A History Ancient and Modern of the Sheriffdoms of Fife and Kinross. Edinburgh
- 1711: Description of the Isles of Orkney and Shetland. Folio, Edinburgh
- 1803: A History Ancient and Modern of the Sheriffdoms of Fife and Kinross. Cupar
- 1837: The Remains of Sir Robert Sibbald, containing his autobiography, memoirs of the Royal College of Physicians, a portion of his literary correspondence, and an account of his MSS.; [edited by James Maidment], 2 pt. in 1 vol. Edinburgh: [printed for the editor]; edition of thirty-five copies; the titlepage of the Autobiography bears the date 1833
- 1845: Description of the Isles of Orkney and Shetland (folio, Edinburgh)
References
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- ↑ History of Livingston, William F hendrie
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- ↑ Withers, Charles, W.J. (1999), Introduction to A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland circa 1695 by Martin Martin, Birlinn, Edinburgh, pp. 1 - 12, Template:Isbn
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- ↑ Sir William Jardine, The Natural History of the Birds of Great Britain and Ireland, publ. W.H. Lizars, 1838. Frontispiece
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- ↑ Sp. Pl. 1: 284. 1753
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- Attribution
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External links
- Article at National Library of Scotland
- Pages with script errors
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- Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica
- 1641 births
- 1722 deaths
- University of Angers (pre-1793) alumni
- Scientists from Edinburgh
- People educated at the Royal High School, Edinburgh
- 17th-century Scottish medical doctors
- 18th-century Scottish medical doctors
- Scottish geographers
- Alumni of the University of Edinburgh
- University of Paris alumni
- Scottish antiquarians
- Leiden University alumni
- Scottish zoologists
- Academics of the University of Edinburgh
- 18th-century Scottish botanists
- Scottish marine biologists
- Marine zoologists
- Scottish knights
- Medical doctors from Edinburgh
- Presidents of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh
- Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
- Writers from Edinburgh