262 . PATRICK BLAIR, SURGEON APOTHECARY,  [Szss. uxxt. 
Dr. Blair, however, was not like “Single-speech Hamilton ” ; 
he did other work which is worth noting, and had a life 
history full of interest. As a physician, as a botanist, and as 
a man, his is a personality which deserves to be better known. 
It is frequently stated he was born in Dundee. That is very 
probable, but I cannot say so definitely, nor fix the date of 
his birth. Maclaren, in his edition of Thomson’s “ History 
of Dundee,’ says he was born about 1680—on what authority 
he does not state; but as Blair in 1717 speaks of having been 
in practice for twenty-eight years—that is, from 1689,—he 
must have been born many years previous to the date given 
by Maclaren. His family was connected with Dundee, and 
in 1625 a namesake, also a medical man. was made an 
honorary burgess of Dundee for “meritorious service to the 
Commonweal”; probably enough for doing his duty in one 
of those epidemics which devastated some of our towns in 
the good old times. Our Patrick Blair says in one of his 
books—and the passage is worth quoting, both for its reference 
to his family and the illustration it gives of his botanical 
methods—“I have known the Vicia dumetorum multiflora 
flore albo continue in the same spot, at Glesclune, in Perth- 
shire, my brother’s estate, a good many years. I found the 
Artemisia flore albo at Lethindy, my Father’s Estate, near to 
the former, had it cultivated in a Garden, and it never 
altered. 1 found Anagallis aquat. S. Becabunga off. with a 
white flower near Perth, had it cultivated in several Gardens, 
and it still continued the same. I found only one stalk of 
the Campanula pratens flore conglomerato albo, among a great 
many others, from a dark purple to this pure white, growing 
at Maidlengare, now Magdalen Green—gare, from old Saxon 
garth or meadow—near Dundee, in great abundance, propagated 
it in my own and several other Gardens, and it never vary’d.” 
(His point was that the white flowered varieties are “ real 
species,” “ they never degenerate or vary, as the finest Flowers 
in Gardens do.”) Where he got his training I have not been 
able as yet to ascertain. He is familar with Edinburgh 
men whom we know to have been Leyden graduates, and a 
search I made in the list of English-speaking graduates at 
Leyden shows a Patrick Blair, but at the date given (1734) 
Dr Blair was dead. 
In an account he gives of a case of poisoning at Peasehill, in 
