(New Stat. Acc.), 1843. 5. ‘An Inquiry into the Constitution, Powers, and Processes of the Human Mind,’ 1858. 6. ‘The Position, Principles, and Duties of the Church of Scotland,’ 1864. 7. ‘An Inquiry into the Fundamental Processes of Religious, Moral, and Political Science,’ 1867. 8. ‘High Churchism,’ 1872. 9. ‘The God of Reason and Revelation’ (posthumous, 1892).
[In Memoriam W. R. Pirie, 1888; Aberdeen Journal, 4 and 9 Nov. and 16 Dec. 1885; Life and Work, December 1885; personal knowledge.]
PIRRIE, WILLIAM (1807–1882), surgeon, the son of George Pirrie, a farmer, was born near Huntly, Aberdeenshire, in 1807. He was educated at Gartly parish school; at Marischal College and University, Aberdeen, where he graduated M.A. in 1825; at the university of Edinburgh, where he graduated M.D. in 1829; and in Paris, where he studied surgery under Baron Dupuytren. Returning to Aberdeen in 1830, he was appointed lecturer on anatomy and physiology in the joint medical schools of King's and Marischal colleges. On the separation of the schools in 1839 he became the first regius professor of surgery in Marischal College; and when they were again united in 1860 he continued to teach as professor of surgery in the university of Aberdeen. In 1875 the university of Edinburgh conferred on him the honorary degree of LL.D. He resigned his chair in the summer of 1882, and died on 21 Nov. in the same year.
Holding office for fifty-two years, Pirrie was well known to three generations of Aberdeen medical students, his portly figure and somewhat assertive manner, together with his fondness for recalling his Parisian experiences under Dupuytren, gaining for him the sobriquet of ‘The Baron.’ His lectures were essentially demonstrative, and he possessed in a high degree the faculty of inspiring enthusiasm in his audience. To him and to his colleague in the chair of anatomy, Dr. John Struthers, is due the credit of establishing the reputation of the Aberdeen medical school, which had never been so largely attended as at his death. At his solicitation his old schoolfellow and steadfast friend through life, Sir Erasmus Wilson, founded a chair of pathology in the university.
An intrepid and successful operator, he was during the latter half of his public career recognised as the foremost surgeon in the north of Scotland. He published, in addition to numerous contributions to the medical press, a treatise on ‘The Principles and Practice of Surgery,’ 1852, which passed through several editions, and long held its ground as a textbook; and, with Dr. William Keith, a work ‘Acupressure, an excellent Method of arresting Surgical Hæmorrhage and of accelerating the Healing of Wounds,’ 1867.
[Aberdeen Journal, 22, 24, 27 Nov. 1882; Lancet and Brit. Med. Journal, 2 Dec.; personal knowledge.]
PISTRUCCI, BENEDETTO (1784–1855), gem-engraver and medallist, born in Rome on 29 May 1784, was the second son of Federico Pistrucci, judge of the high criminal court of Rome, by his wife Antonia Greco. He inherited a physical peculiarity in having his hands and feet covered with a thick callous skin. He attended schools at Bologna, Rome, and Naples, but disliked Latin and made little progress. He amused himself by constructing toy cars and cannon, and when he was fourteen learnt gem-engraving from Mango, an engraver of cameos in Rome. He learned to cut hard and soft flints, and made rapid progress, though his master was an indifferent artist. Domenico Desalief, a cameo merchant, gave Pistrucci a stone of three strata to cut for him, and employed him on a large cameo (the crowning of a warrior) that passed, as an antique, into the cabinet of the empress of Russia. When about fifteen Pistrucci was taught at Rome by Morelli, for whom he made nine cameos. He attended the drawing academy at the Campidoglio, and obtained the first prize in sculpture. He soon, however, quarrelled with Morelli, and when not quite sixteen began, as he expresses it, his ‘career of professor, loaded with commissions on all sides.’
Pistrucci married at eighteen, and worked in Rome for several years for Vescovali, for the Russian Count Demidoff, for General Bale, and for Angiolo Bonelli, an unscrupulous dealer in gems who tried to pass off Pistrucci's works as antiques. Pistrucci made portraits of the queen of Naples and the Princess Borghese at their command, and executed—in competition with Girometti and Santarelli—a cameo-portrait of the Princess Bacciochi (Napoleon's sister), who invited him to Florence and to Pisa, where he gave instruction in modelling at the court. In December 1814 Pistrucci went to Paris, where he was visited by several amateurs of cameos. He made a model in wax of Napoleon, kept it in his pocket to compare with the original when he appeared in public, and at last completed a portrait which was considered ‘extremely like’ (Billing, fig. 115).
