A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen/Blair, Patrick, M.D.

BLAIR, Patrick, M.D. an eminent botanist in the earlier period of the existence of that science in Britain, was first known as a practitioner of surgery and physic at Dundee, where he brought himself into prominent notice as an anatomist, 170S, by the dissection of an elephant which died near that place. He was a non-juror or Scottish episcopalian, and so far attached to the exiled family of Stuart, as to be imprisoned during the insurrection of 1715, as a suspected person. He afterwards removed to London, where he recommended himself to the attention of the Royal Society by some discourses on the sexes of flowers. His stay in London was short, and after leaving it, he settled at Boston in Lincolnshire, where Dr Pulteney conjectures that he practised physic during the remainder of his life. The same writer, in his "Historical and Biographical Sketches of English Botany," supposes that his death happened soon after the publication of the seventh Decad of his Pharmacobotanologia, in 1728.

Dr Blair's first publication was entitled, "Miscellaneous Observations in Physic, Anatomy, Surgery, and Botanicks, 8vo, 1718." In the botanical part of this work, be insinuates some doubts relating to the method suggested by Petion and others, of deducing the qualities of vegetables from the agreement in natural characters; and instances the Cynoglossum, as tending to prove the fallacy of this rule. He relates several instances of the poisonous effects of plants, and thinks the Echium Marinum (Pulmonaria Maritima of Linnaeus) should be ranked in the genus Cynoglossum, since it possesses a narcotic power. He describes and figures several of the more rare British plants, which he had discovered in a tour made into Wales; for instance, the Ruinex Digynus, Lobelia Dortmanna, Alisma Ranunculoides, Pyrola Rotundifolia, Alchemilla Alpina, eta But the work by which he rendered the greatest service to botany, originated with his "Discourse on the Sexes of Plants," read before the Royal Society, and afterwards greatly amplified, and published, at the request of several members of that body, under the title of "Botanical Essays, 8vo, 1720." This treatise is divided into two parts, containing five essays; the three first respecting what is proper to plants, and the two last, what is proper to plants and animals. This is acknowledged, by an eminent judge, to have been the first complete work, at least in the English language, on that important department of botanical science, the sexes of the plants. The author shows himself well acquainted, in general, with all the opinions and arguments which had been already circulated on the same subject. The value of the work must not be estimated by the measure of modern knowledge, though even at this day it may be read by those not critically versed in the subject, with instruction and improvement. A view of the several methods then invented, cannot be seen so connectedly in any other English author. Dr Blair strengthened the arguments in proof of the sexes of plants, by sound reasoning and some new experiments. His reasons against Morland's opinion of the entrance of the Farina into the Vasculum Seminale, and his refutation of the Lewenhœkian theory, hare met with the sanction of the greatest names in modern botany. Dr Blair's last distinct publication, which he did not live to complete, was "Parmacobotanologia, or an Alphabetical and Classical Dissertation on all the British indigenous and garden plants of the New Dispensatory," 4to, 1723—28. In this work, which was carried no further than the letter H, the genera and species are described, the sensible qualities and medicinal powers are subjoined, with the pharmaceutical uses, and the author also notices several of the more rare English plants, discovered by himself in the environs of Boston. Dr Blair's fugitive writings consist of various papers in the Philosophical Transactions, of which one of the most remarkable is an account of the Anatomy and Osteology of the Elephant, drawn up from his observations in dissecting the animal above alluded to at Dundee.