LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ROBERT WHYTT, M.D. 105 



Dr Black gives of the circumstances attending his discovery of the nature of 

 calcareous earth, magnesia, the alkalies, and their relation to fixed air, — the very 

 foundation of modern chemistry, — he says, " I think it still worth your while to 

 hear a history of the investigation." * * * " But I was peculiarly excited to it 

 by the then recent discoveries of the power of lime-water to give relief in cases of 

 the stone and gravel, in which it was supposed to act by dissolving those concre- 

 tions, and expelling them out of the body. Dr Whytt and Dr Alston, professors 

 in this university, were then employed in a dispute on this subject. They both 

 believed that it had efficacy ; but Dr Whytt imagined that he had discovered 

 that the lime-water of oyster shell-lime had more power as a solvent than the 

 lime-water of common stone lime. I therefore conceived hopes, that by trying a 

 greater variety of the alkaline earths, some kinds might be found still more dif- 

 ferent by their qualities from the common kind, and perhaps yielding a lime-water 

 still more powerful than that of oyster-shell lime." * 



Thus the elaborate experiments of Whytt and Alston on single and double 

 lime-water, and on the comparative solubilities of oyster, cockle, egg-shell and 

 limestone lime-water, however vain and fruitless they may seem on a cursory 

 view, held a share in the origin of the great discoveries which, within a short 

 period of their date, placed the science of chemistry on a wholly new and extended 

 footing. 



The original paper in " The Edinburgh Medical Essays," on the virtues of soap 

 and lime-water, which grew into the treatise as it now appears in the collected 

 edition of his works, was published, as already stated, in the year 1743. Up to 

 this time the same professors had continued to teach in the medical department 

 of the university. 



Among Whytt's medical friends, Dr Pringle, afterwards Sir John Pringle, 

 stands pre-eminent. Pringle, after taking his degree at Leyden in 1730, had 

 come to Edinburgh with the purpose of settling as a physician ; nevertheless, in 

 1784, he accepted the office of Professor of Moral Philosophy in the university. 

 In 1742 he commenced a new career, by becoming physician to the Commander- 

 in-Chief of the British forces in Flanders. He retained his professorship till 

 1745, when he resigned. He settled a short time after in London, when Whytt 

 commenced a close correspondence with him on medical subjects, which was con- 

 tinued to the last year but one of Whytt's life. After Whytt's death. Sir John 

 Pringle assisted his son in the publication of the collected edition of his works. 



In 1743 or 1744, Dr Innes, one of the four Professors of Medicine elected in 

 1726, fell into ill health. It appears that in the division of labour among these 

 four professors, Rutherford and Innes lectured on the practice of medicine, 

 Sinclair on the theory of medicine, and Plummer on chemistry, or rather on 



* Black : Lectures on the Elements of Chemistry, by Robison (1803), vol. ii. p. 53. 



