Sir Robert Sibbald (15 April 1641 – August 1722) was a Scottish physician and antiquary.

Life

He was born in

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

, the son of David Sibbald (brother of Sir James Sibbald) and Margaret Boyd (January 1606 – 10 July 1672). Educated at the Royal High School and the Universities of

Leiden Leiden ( ; ; in English language, English and Archaism, archaic Dutch language, Dutch also Leyden) is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Provinces of the Nethe ...

, and

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, he took his doctor's degree at the University of Angers in 1662, and soon afterwards settled as a physician working in Edinburgh. He resided at "Kipps Castle" near

Linlithgow Linlithgow ( ; ; ) is a town in West Lothian, Scotland. It was historically West Lothian's county town, reflected in the county's historical name of Linlithgowshire. An ancient town, it lies in the Central Belt on a historic route between Edi ...

. In 1667 with Sir Andrew Balfour he started the botanical garden in Edinburgh, and he took a leading part in establishing the

Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh The Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (RCPE) is a medical royal college in Scotland. It is one of three organisations that set the specialty training standards for physicians in the United Kingdom. It was established by royal charter i ...

, of which he was elected president in 1684. Both Sibbald and Balfour were proponents of the

Edinburgh Pharmacopoeia The ''Edinburgh Pharmacopoeia'' was a medical guide consisting of recipes and methods for making medicine. It was first published by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in 1699 as the ''Pharmacopoea Collegii Regii Medicorum Edimburgens ...

. In 1682, Sibbald began assembling material for a projected two volume geographical description or atlas of Scotland, recruiting parish ministers and members of the nobility and gentry to assist him in the task. While the work was never published, many of the manuscripts describing aspects of the geography, natural history and antiquities of parts of Scotland have survived. In 1685 he was appointed the first professor of medicine at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...

. He was knighted, named Physician to the King, and appointed Geographer Royal in 1682. His numerous and miscellaneous writings deal with historical and antiquarian as well as with botanical and medical subjects. He based many of his cartographical studies on the work of

Timothy Pont Reverend Timothy Pont () was a Scottish minister, cartographer and topographer. He was the first to produce a detailed map of Scotland. Pont's maps are among the earliest surviving to show a European country in minute detail, from an actual surve ...

. He is buried in

Greyfriars Kirkyard Greyfriars Kirkyard is the graveyard surrounding Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh, Scotland. It is located at the southern edge of the Old Town, Edinburgh, Old Town, adjacent to George Heriot's School. Burials have been taking place since the late 1 ...

in Edinburgh in a vault against the southern wall. '' Sibbaldia procumbens'' (Rosaceae), that Sibbald described and illustrated in his book ''Scotia illustrata'' in 1684 (volume 2, tab. 6(1)), was named after him in 1753 by

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

. '' Sibbaldia'' is a

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

of about 13 species of

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (). The term angiosperm is derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek words (; 'container, vessel') and (; 'seed'), meaning that the seeds are enclosed with ...

s. In 1941, the Russian botanist Sergei Vasilievich Juzepczuk (1893-1959) published '' Sibbaldianthe'', also in the family Rosaceae, which has about 7 species.

Taxonomy of the blue whale—''Sibbaldus''

Sibbald is also remembered for his study of whales. Originally the

blue whale The blue whale (''Balaenoptera musculus'') is a marine mammal and a baleen whale. Reaching a maximum confirmed length of and weighing up to , it is the largest animal known ever to have existed. The blue whale's long and slender body can ...

was named after Sibbald, who first described it scientifically. Although the blue whale is today usually classified as one of eight species in the genus ''Balaenoptera'', one authority still places it in a separate monotypic genus, ''Sibbaldus'', but this is not widely accepted. The blue whale was once commonly referred to as ''Sibbald's rorqual''.

Works

Sibbald's historical and antiquarian works include: *1683: ''An Account of the Scottish Atlas''. Folio, Edinburgh *1684: ''Scotia illustrata''. Edinburgh *1699: ''Memoria Balfouriana; sive, Historia rerum, pro literis promovendis, gestarum a ... fratribus Balfouriis ... Jacobo ... et ... Andrea. Authore R.S.''. Edinburgi: Typis Hæredum Andreæ Anderson *1699:
Provision for the poor in time of dearth and scarcity
' *1710: ''A History Ancient and Modern of the Sheriffdoms of Fife and Kinross''. Edinburgh *1711: ''Description of the Isles of Orkney and Shetland''. Folio, Edinburgh *1803: ''A History Ancient and Modern of the Sheriffdoms of Fife and Kinross''. Cupar *1837: ''The Remains of Sir Robert Sibbald, containing his autobiography, memoirs of the Royal College of Physicians, a portion of his literary correspondence, and an account of his MSS.''; dited by James Maidment">James_Maidment.html" ;"title="dited by James Maidment">dited by James Maidment 2 pt. in 1 vol. Edinburgh: [printed for the editor]; edition of thirty-five copies; the titlepage of the Autobiography bears the date 1833 *1845
''Description of the Isles of Orkney and Shetland''
(folio, Edinburgh)

References

;Attribution *

External links

*Article a

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sibbald, Robert 1641 births 1722 deaths University of Angers (pre-1793) alumni Scientists from Edinburgh People educated at the Royal High School, Edinburgh 17th-century Scottish medical doctors 18th-century Scottish medical doctors Scottish geographers Alumni of the University of Edinburgh University of Paris alumni Scottish antiquarians Leiden University alumni Scottish zoologists Academics of the University of Edinburgh 18th-century Scottish botanists Scottish marine biologists Marine zoologists Scottish knights Medical doctors from Edinburgh Presidents of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh Writers from Edinburgh