SIR ROBERT SIBBALD. 25 



October 30, 1662, having been absent two years 

 and a half. Here he found his younger brother 

 George suffering severely from a dislocation of 

 the spine, occasioned by a person, in play, tossing 

 him over his shoulder five years before, a practice 

 too common, but highly reprehensible. In this 

 poor child's case, it produced an abscess ; which, 

 after years of acute pain, terminated fatally in 

 the fifteenth year of his age. 



The young physician, with great prudence, 

 settled at his mother's house, determined to live 

 as economically as possible, as his means were 

 limited by a liferent his mother possessed out 

 of his father's property. His father had been 

 compelled by the misfortune at Dundee to incur 

 some debts, which were undischarged at his death ; 

 which his son, with a high sense of honour, deter- 

 mined to discharge. To encourage such laudable 

 moderation, he studied Seneca and Epictetus, and 

 other of the Stoics, which he " affected" because 

 of their contempt of riches and honours. " The 

 design," he tells us, " which he proposed to 

 himself, was to pass quietly through the world, 

 and content himself with a moderate fortune." 

 With this resolution, he commenced practice 

 among his friends, and refused fees from the 

 poor ; but courted the acquaintance of surgeons 

 and apothecaries, " carrying himself with a great 

 deal of deference and respect to them," for the 



