Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pitt, Robert

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1168985Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 45 — Pitt, Robert1896Norman Moore

PITT, ROBERT, M.D. (1653–1713), physician, son of Robert Pitt, was born at Blandford Forum, Dorset, in 1653. He matriculated at Wadham College, Oxford, on 2 April 1669, and was elected to a scholarship there in 1670. He graduated B.A. in 1672, was elected a fellow of his college in 1674, graduated M.A. in 1675, M.B. in 1678, and M.D. on 16 Feb. 1682. He taught anatomy at Oxford, and was elected F.R.S. on 20 Dec. 1682. In 1684 he settled in London, and was admitted a candidate or member of the College of Physicians on 22 Dec. He was created a fellow by the new charter of James II, and admitted on 12 April 1687. He was a censor in 1687 and 1702. He lived in 1685 in the parish of St. Peter-le-Poer, in the city of London; in 1703, and till his death, in Hatton Garden. On the death of Francis Bernard [q. v.] he was, on 23 Feb. 1697–8, elected physician to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and held office till 1707. He took an active part in the controversy which followed the establishment of a dispensary by the College of Physicians in 1696, and published in 1702 ‘The Craft and Frauds of Physick exposed,’ dedicated to Sir William Prichard, president, and to the governors of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and written to show the small cost of the really useful drugs, the worthlessness of some expensive ones, and the folly of taking too much physic. The book gives a clear exposition of the therapeutics of that day, and is full of shrewd observations. Sarsaparilla, which for more than a hundred years later was a highly esteemed drug, had been detected by Pitt to be inert, and he condemned the use of bezoar, of powder of vipers, of mummy, and of many other once famous therapeutic agents, on the ground that accurate tests proved them of no effect. A second and third edition appeared in 1703. In 1704 he published ‘The Antidote, or the Preservative of Life and Health and the Restorative of Physick to its Sincerity and Perfection,’ and in 1705 ‘The Frauds and Villainies of the Common Practice of Physic demonstrated to be curable by the College Dispensary.’ He was attacked by Joseph Browne (fl. 1706) [q. v.] in 1704 in a book entitled ‘The Modern Practice of Physick vindicated from the groundless imputations of Dr. Pitt.’ He also published a paper in the ‘Philosophical Transactions’ for 1691 on the weight of the land tortoise. The observations which were made in conjunction with Sir George Ent, M.D. [q. v.], compare the weight of the reptile before and after hibernation for a series of years.

Pitt married Martha, daughter of John Nourse of Wood Eaton, Oxfordshire, in 1686, and died on 13 Jan. 1712–3.

[Works; Munk's College of Physicians, i. 445; manuscript minute-books of St. Bartholomew's Hospital; Foster's Alumni Oxon.]

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