Editing John Arbuthnot

{{Short description|Scottish physician, satirist and polymath in London (1667–1735)}}
{{Other people|John Arbuthnot}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2021}}
{{Use British English|date=July 2012}}
{{Infobox person
| name               = 
| image              = Arbuthnot John Kneller.jpg
| caption            = Portrait of John Arbuthnot by [[Godfrey Kneller]]
| birth_date         = 1667 (baptised on 29 April)
| birth_place        = [[Kincardineshire]], Scotland
| death_date         = 27 February 1735 (aged 67)
| nationality        = Scottish
| education          = Marischal College, [[University of Aberdeen]]
| occupation         = physician, satirist, polymath
}}

'''John Arbuthnot''' FRS (''baptised'' 29 April 1667 – 27 February 1735), often known simply as '''Dr Arbuthnot''', was a Scottish<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Arbuthnot|title=John Arbuthnot &#124; British mathematician and author |website=Britannica}}</ref> [[physician]], [[satire|satirist]] and [[polymath]] in [[London]]. He is best remembered for his contributions to [[mathematics]], his membership in the [[Scriblerus Club]] (where he inspired [[Jonathan Swift]]'s ''[[Gulliver's Travels]]'' book III and [[Alexander Pope]]'s ''[[Peri Bathous, Or the Art of Sinking in Poetry]]'', ''Memoirs of Martin Scriblerus,'' and possibly ''[[The Dunciad]]''), and for inventing the figure of [[John Bull]].

==Biography==
In his mid-life, Arbuthnot, complaining of the work of [[Edmund Curll]], among others, who commissioned and invented a biography as soon as an author died, said, "Biography is one of the new terrors of death," and so a biography of Arbuthnot is made difficult by his own reluctance to leave records. [[Alexander Pope]] noted to [[Joseph Spence (author)|Joseph Spence]] that Arbuthnot allowed his infant children to play with, and even burn, his writings. Throughout his professional life, Arbuthnot exhibited a strong humility and social conviviality, and his friends often complained that he did not take sufficient credit for his own work.

Arbuthnot was born in [[Arbuthnott|Arbuthnot]], [[Kincardineshire]], on the north-eastern coast of Scotland, son of Margaret (née Lammie) and Rev Alexander Arbuthnot, an [[Scottish Episcopal Church|Episcopalian]] priest. He may have graduated with an arts degree from [[Marischal College]] in 1685.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265207566|title=Scots in London in the Eighteenth Century|last=Nenadic|first=Stana}}</ref> Where Arbuthnot's brothers took part in [[Jacobitism|Jacobite]] causes in 1689, he remained with his father. These brothers included Robert, who fled after fighting for [[James II of England|King James VII]] in 1689 and became a banker in [[Rouen]] and half-brother George, who fled to France and became a wine merchant. However, when [[William III of England|William and Mary]] came to the throne and the Scottish and English parliaments required all ministers to swear allegiance to them as king and queen, Arbuthnot's father did not comply. As a [[Nonjuring schism|non-juror]], he was removed from his church, and John was there to take care of affairs when, in 1691, his father died.

[[File:John Arbuthnot.gif|thumb|left|Arbuthnot, from a painting by [[Godfrey Kneller]]]]
Arbuthnot went to [[London]] in 1691, where he is supposed to have supported himself by teaching mathematics (which had been his formal course of study). He lodged with William Pate, whom Swift knew and called a "''bel esprit''". He published ''Of the Laws of Chance'' in 1692, translated from [[Christiaan Huygens]]'s ''De ratiociniis in ludo aleae.'' This was the first work on probability published in English. The work, which applied the field of [[probability]] to common games, was a success, and Arbuthnot became the private tutor of one Edward Jeffreys, son of Jeffrey Jeffreys, an [[member of Parliament|MP]]. He remained Jeffreys's tutor when the latter attended [[University College, Oxford]] in 1694, and he there met the variety of scholars then teaching mathematics and medicine, including Dr [[John Radcliffe (English physician)|John Radcliffe]], [[Isaac Newton]], and [[Samuel Pepys]]. However, Arbuthnot lacked the money to be a full-time student and was already well educated, although informally. He went to the [[University of St Andrews]] and enrolled as a doctoral student in [[medicine]] on 11 September 1696. The ''very same day'' he defended seven theses on medicine and was awarded the doctorate.

He first wrote [[satire]] in 1697, when he answered Dr [[John Woodward (naturalist)|John Woodward]]'s ''An essay towards a natural history of the earth and terrestrial bodies, especially minerals...'' with ''An Examination of Dr Woodward's Account &c.'' He poked fun at the arrogance of the work and Woodward's misguided, [[Aristotle|Aristotelian]] insistence that what is theoretically attractive must be actually true. In 1701, Arbuthnot wrote another mathematical work, ''An essay on the usefulness of mathematical learning, in a letter from a gentleman in the city to his friend in Oxford.'' The work was moderately successful, and Arbuthnot praises mathematics as a method of freeing the mind from [[superstition]].

In 1702, he was at [[Epsom]] when [[Prince George of Denmark]], husband of [[Anne, Queen of Great Britain|Queen Anne]] fell ill. According to tradition, Arbuthnot treated the prince successfully. According to tradition again, this treatment earned him an invitation to court. Also around 1702, he married Margaret, whose maiden name is possibly Wemyss. Although there are no baptismal records, it seems that his first son, George (named in honour of the prince), was born in 1703. He was elected to be a Fellow of the [[Royal Society]] in 1704. Also thanks to the Queen's presence, he was made an MD at [[University of Cambridge|Cambridge University]] on 16 April 1705.

Arbuthnot was an amiable individual, and Swift said that the only fault an enemy could lay upon him was a slight waddle in his walk. His conviviality and his royal connections made him an important figure in the Royal Society. In 1705, Arbuthnot became physician extraordinary to Queen Anne, and at the same time was put on the board trying to publish the ''Historia coelestius.'' Newton and [[Edmund Halley]] wanted it published immediately, to support their work on orbits, while [[John Flamsteed]], the Royal Astronomer whose observations they were, wanted to keep the data secret until he had perfected it. The result was that Arbuthnot used his leverage as friend and physician to Prince George, whose money was paying for the publication, to force Flamsteed to allow it out, albeit with serious errors, in 1712. Also as a scholar, Arbuthnot took up an interest in antiquities and published ''Tables of Grecian, Roman, and Jewish measures, weights and coins; reduced to the English standard'' in 1705, 1707, 1709, and, expanded with a preface (which indicated that his second son, Charles, was born in 1705), in 1727 and 1747.

Although Arbuthnot was not a [[Jacobitism|Jacobite]] after the fashion of his brothers, he was a [[Tories (British political party)|Tory]], for national and familial reasons. Anne was advised (and many said controlled) by [[Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough]], who was a champion of [[British Whig Party|Whig]] causes. In 1706, the Duchess of Marlborough fell out with Anne—a [[Schism (religion)|schism]] which the Tories were pleased to encourage. The marriage of lady-in-waiting Abigail Hill to [[Samuel Masham]], which was the first overt sign of Anne's displeasure with Sarah Churchill, took place in Arbuthnot's apartments at [[St James's Palace]]. The reasons for the choice of apartment and the degree of involvement of Arbuthnot in either the love match or Anne's estrangement, are not clear. As a Scotsman, Arbuthnot served the crown by writing ''A sermon preach'd to the people at the Mercat Cross of Edinborough on the subject of the union. Ecclesiastes, Chapter 10, Verse 27.'' The work was designed to persuade Scots to accept the [[Acts of Union 1707|Act of Union]]. When the Act passed, Arbuthnot was made a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. He was also made a [[In ordinary|physician in ordinary]] to the Queen, which made him part of the [[Medical Household|royal household]].

Arbuthnot returned to mathematics in 1710 with ''An argument for Divine Providence, taken from the constant regularity observed in the births of both sexes'' (linked below) in the Royal Society's ''Philosophical Transactions.'' In this paper, Arbuthnot examined birth records in London for each of the 82 years from 1629 to 1710 and the [[human sex ratio]] at birth: in every year, the number of males born in London exceeded the number of females. If the probability of male and female birth were equal, the probability of the observed outcome would be 1/2<sup>82</sup>. This vanishingly small number led Arbuthnot to believe that this phenomenon was not due to chance, but to divine providence: "From whence it follows, that it is Art, not Chance, that governs." This paper was a landmark in the [[history of statistics]]; in modern terms he performed [[statistical hypothesis testing]], computing the [[p-value|''p''-value]] (via a [[sign test]]), interpreted it as [[statistical significance]], and rejected the [[null hypothesis]]. This is credited as "… the first use of significance tests …",<ref name="Bellhouse2001">{{Citation
|last=Bellhouse
|first=P.
|title=in Statisticians of the Centuries by 
|editor1=C.C. Heyde
|editor1-link=Chris Heyde
|editor2-link=Eugene Seneta
|editor2= E. Seneta
|year=2001
|publisher=Springer
|isbn=0-387-95329-9
|pages=39–42
|chapter=John Arbuthnot}}
</ref> the first example of reasoning about statistical significance and moral certainty,<ref name="Hald1998">{{Citation
|last=Hald
|first=Anders
|title=A History of Mathematical Statistics from 1750 to 1930
|year=1998
|publisher=Wiley
|pages=65
|chapter=Chapter 4. Chance or Design: Tests of Significance}}</ref> and "… perhaps the first published report of a [[nonparametric test]] …".<ref name="Conover1999">{{Citation
|last=Conover
|first=W.J.
|title=Practical Nonparametric Statistics
|edition=Third
|year=1999
|publisher=Wiley
|isbn=0-471-16068-7
|pages=157–176
|chapter=Chapter 3.4: The Sign Test
}}</ref>

==As a Scriblerian==

In 1710, Jonathan Swift moved to [[London]]. With [[Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford]] (who was then the secretary of the treasury and not a peer), he produced the [[Tories (British political party)|Tory]] ''Examiner,'' and Arbuthnot made their acquaintance and began to provide "hints" to them. These "hints" were ideas for essays, satirical gambits, and facts, rather than secrets of any sort. From 1711 to 1713, Arbuthnot and Swift formed "The Brothers' Club," though Arbuthnot characteristically gave away his ideas and even his writings, never seeking credit for them.

[[File:John Bull - World War I recruiting poster.jpeg|thumb|left|180px|[[John Bull]] in his [[World War I]] iteration. Arbuthnot's character became an enduring symbol for the United Kingdom.]]

In 1712, Arbuthnot and Swift both attempted to aid the Tory government of Harley and [[Henry St. John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke|Henry St. John]] in their efforts to end the [[War of the Spanish Succession]]. The war had profited John and Sarah Churchill, and the Tory ministry sought to end it by withdrawing from all England's alliances and negotiating directly with France. Swift wrote ''The Conduct of the Allies,'' and Arbuthnot wrote a series of five pamphlets featuring [[John Bull]]. The first of these, ''Law Is a Bottomless Pit'' (1712), introduced a simple [[allegory]] to explain the war. John Bull (England) is suing Louis Baboon (i.e. Louis Bourbon, or [[Louis XIV of France]]) over the estate of the dead Lord Strutt ([[Charles II of Spain]]). Bull's lawyer is the one who really enjoys the suit, and he is Humphrey Hocus (Marlborough). Bull has a sister named Peg (Scotland). The pamphlets are Swiftian in their satire, in that they make all of the characters hopelessly flawed and comic and none of their endeavour worth pursuing (which was Arbuthnot's intent, as he sought to make the war an object of scorn), but it is filled with homespun humour, a common touch, and a sympathy for the figures that is distinctly non-Swiftian.

In 1713, Arbuthnot continued his political satire with ''Proposals for printing a very curious discourse... a treatise of the art of political lying, with an abstract of the first volume.'' As with other works that Arbuthnot encouraged, this systemizes a [[rhetoric]] of bad thinking and writing. He proposes to teach people to lie well. Similar lists and systems are in [[Alexander Pope]]'s ''Peri Bathos'' and [[John Gay]] and Pope's ''[[Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus]].'' Also in 1713, Arbuthnot was made a physician of [[Chelsea Hospital]], which provided him with a house. It was this house that hosted the meetings of the [[Scriblerus Club]], which had as its members Harley (now Earl of Oxford), St. John (now Viscount Bolingbroke), Pope, Gay, Swift, and [[Thomas Parnell]]. According to all the members of the club, Arbuthnot was the one who contributed the most in ideas, and he was the only source they could draw upon when satirizing the sciences, and his was the idea for the ''Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus,'' a pedantic man who, like Arbuthnot's earlier opponent, Dr Woodward, would read three or four lines of Classical literature and deduce a universal (and absurd) truth from them.

The club met for only a year, as Queen Anne died in July 1714, and the club met for the last time in November of that year. When Anne died, she had no will. Consequently, all her servants were left without positions and entirely at the mercy of the next administration – an administration that was chosen by the enemies of Arbuthnot and the other Scriblerans. When [[George I of Great Britain|George I]] came to the throne, Arbuthnot lost all of his royal appointments and houses, but he still had a vigorous medical practice. He lived at "the second door from the left in [[Dover Street]]" in [[Piccadilly]].

==Life under the Hanoverians==

In 1717, Arbuthnot contributed somewhat to Pope and Gay's play, ''[[Three Hours after Marriage]],'' which ran for seven nights. He was a friend to [[George Frederic Handel]] and appointed director to the [[Royal Academy of Music (1719)]] from the start in 1719 till 1729.

In 1719 he took part in a pamphlet war over the treatment of [[smallpox]]. In particular, he attacked Dr Woodward, who had again presented a dogmatic and, Arbuthnot thought, irrational opinion. In 1723, Arbuthnot was made one of the censors of the [[Royal College of Physicians]], and as such he was one of the campaigners to inspect and improve the drugs sold by [[apothecaries]] in London. In 1723, the apothecaries sued the RCP, and Arbuthnot wrote ''Reasons humbly offered by the ... upholders ([[undertaker]]s) against part of the bill for the better viewing, searching, and examining of drugs.'' The pamphlet suggested that the funeral directors of London might wish to sue the Royal College of Physicians as well to ensure that drug safety remained poor. In 1727, he was made an elect of the Royal College of Physicians.

In 1726 and 1727, Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope reunited at Arbuthnot's house during visits, and Swift showed Arbuthnot the manuscript of ''[[Gulliver's Travels]]'' ahead of time. The detailed parody of on-going Royal Society projects in book III of ''Gulliver's Travels'' likely came from "hints" from Arbuthnot. The visit also bore fruit in Pope's ''[[The Dunciad]]'' of 1729 (the second edition), where Arbuthnot probably wrote the "Virgilius restauratus" satirizing [[Richard Bentley]].

Arbuthnot was [[Legal guardian|guardian]] to [[Peter the Wild Boy]] on his first arrival in London.
[[File:Acta Eruditorum - III musa arabum pala plinii, 1734 – BEIC 13446956.jpg|thumb|Illustration from ''Tentamen circa indolem alimentoru'' published in [[Acta Eruditorum]], 1734]]
In 1730, Arbuthnot's wife died. The next year, he produced a work of popular medicine, ''An essay concerning the nature of aliments, and the choice of them, according to the different constitutions of human bodies.'' The book was quite popular, and a second edition, with advice on diet, came out the next year. It had four more full editions and translations into French and German. In 1733 he wrote another very popular work of medicine called ''[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/ecco/004888786.0001.000?view=toc An Essay Concerning the Effects of Air on Human Bodies].'' As with the former work, it went through multiple editions and translations. He argued that the air itself had to have enormous effects on the personality and persons of humanity, and he believed that the air of locations resulted in the characteristics of the people, as well as particular maladies. He advised his readers to ventilate sickrooms and to seek fresh air in cities. Although the idea that airs carried sickness was incorrect, the practical upshot of Arbuthnot's advice was efficacious, as crowded, poorly sanitized Augustan era cities had bad air and infectious air.

His son Charles, studying to be a divine at [[Christ Church, Oxford]], died in 1731, the same year that the Swift and Pope ''Miscellanies, Volume the Third'' (which was the first volume) appeared. He contributed "An Essay of the Learned Martinus Scriblerus Concerning the Origine of the Sciences" to the volume.

In 1734, his health began to decline. He had [[kidney stones]] and [[asthma]], and he was also [[Obesity|overweight]]. On 17 July 1734, Arbuthnot wrote to Pope to tell him that he had a terminal illness. In a response dated 2 August, Pope indicates that he planned to write more satire, and on 25 August told Arbuthnot that he was going to address one of his epistles to him, later characterizing it as a memorial to their friendship. Arbuthnot died at his house in [[Cork Street]], in [[London]] on 27 February 1735, eight weeks after the poem "[[Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot]]" was published.<ref>Rogers, ''The Alexander Pope Encyclopedia'', p. 110; Baines, ''The Complete Critical Guide to Alexander Pope'' (Routledge, 2000), p. 37.</ref> He is buried at [[St James's Church, Piccadilly]].

==Literary significance==

Arbuthnot was one of the founding members of the [[Scriblerus Club]], and was regarded by the other wits of the group as the funniest, but he left fewer literary remains than the other members. His satires are written with an ease, a humanity, and an apparent sympathy. Swift and Arbuthnot had similar styles in language (both preferred direct sentences and clear vocabulary) with a feigned frenzy of lists and [[Taxonomy (general)|taxonomies]], and sometimes their works are attributed to each other. The treatise on political lying, for example, has been attributed to Swift in the past, although it was definitely Arbuthnot's. Generally, Arbuthnot's writings are not as vicious or nihilistic as Swift's, but they attack the same targets and both refuse to hold up a set of positive norms for their readers.{{original research inline|date=March 2020}}

Because of Arbuthnot's own insistence on not being recognized, it is difficult to speak definitively of his literary significance. [[Samuel Johnson]] thought highly of him as [[James Boswell|Boswell]] noted: "Talking of the eminent writers in Queen Anne's reign, he observed ,'I think Dr. Arbuthnott the first man among them. He was the most universal genius, being an excellent physician, a man of deep learning, and a man of much humour.'"<ref>James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson, London: Oxford University Press, 1966, Wed. 6th July 1763, p.301.</ref> Arbuthnot was at the heart of many of the greatest satires of his age. He was a conduit and source for a great many of the finest literary accomplishments for over half a century of writing, but Arbuthnot was zealous that he not receive credit.{{original research inline|date=March 2020}}

== Bibliography ==
*{{cite book|author=George A. Aitken | title=The Life and Works of John Arbuthnot|year=1892 |publisher=Clarendon Press | isbn=9781721918362| url=https://archive.org/details/lifeandworksjoh01arbugoog |quote=john arbuthnot aitken works. | oclc=353293  }} Arbuthnot's collected works, available on line.
*{{cite book|author=Lester M. Beattie|title=John Arbuthnot: Mathematician and Satirist|publisher=Harvard University Press|year=1935|isbn=9781721918362|oclc=2175311}}
*{{cite journal|author=D. R. Bellhouse | journal=International Statistical Review |title=A manuscript on chance written by John Arbuthnot |volume=57|issue=3|pages=249–259|date=December 1989|orig-year=manuscript first published 1694 |doi=10.2307/1403798| jstor=1403798 }}

== Works ==
* {{cite journal|author=John Arbuthnot |title=An argument for Divine Providence, taken from the constant regularity observed in the births of both sexes|journal=[[Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London]] | volume=27| pages=186–190 | year=1710 | url=http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/maths/histstat/arbuthnot.pdf|doi=10.1098/rstl.1710.0011|issue=325–336|s2cid=186209819|doi-access=free}}
* John Arbuthnot (1712, published in 1727). ''[https://archive.org/details/historyofjohnbul00arbuuoft The History of John Bull]''. 
* John Arbuthnot (1722). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=swBcAAAAQAAJ Mr. Maitland’s account of inoculating the small-pox]'', London, printed for the author, by J. Downing. (Transcription in [http://name.umdl.umich.edu/004807321.0001.000 Eighteenth Century Collections Online]).
* John Arbuthnot (1733). ''[[iarchive:essayconcerninge00arbu|An essay concerning the effects of air on human bodies]]'', London, printed for J. Tonson in the Strand. (Transcription in [http://name.umdl.umich.edu/004888786.0001.000 Eighteenth Century Collections Online]).
* John Arbuthnot (1727). ''Tables of Ancient Coins, Weights and Measures. Explain'd and exemplify'd in several dissertations.'', London : printed for J. Tonson, 1727.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Sources==
*Anderson, William, ''John Arbuthnot, M.D.'', in ''The Scottish Nation'', Edinburgh, 1867, vol.1, pps:146-151.
* Ross, Angus, ''John Arbuthnot'' in Matthew, H.C.G., and Brian Harrison (eds.), ''[[Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]]'', vol. 2, 325&ndash;329. London: [[Oxford University Press]], 2004.

==Further reading==
* {{Eminent Scotsmen|Arbuthnot, John, M.D.|1|68-73}}

==External links==
{{wikisource author}}
{{wikiquote}}
* [http://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/authors/pers00073.shtml John Arbuthnot] at the [http://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/ Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive (ECPA)]
* {{Gutenberg author |id=Arbuthnot,+John | name=John Arbuthnot}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=John Arbuthnot}}
* {{Librivox author |id=2211}}
*[[s:Epitaph on Don Francisco|Epitaph on Don Francisco (1732) at Wikisource]]
*[http://www.arbuthnot.org/dr_john.htm Concerning Dr John Arbuthnot's images]
*{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20021209105514/http://www.kittybrewster.com/h.htm Arbuthnot family tree]}}
*[http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Arbuthnot.html Arbuthnot's actutor biography]
*[http://www.ikanlundu.com/literary/The_Art_of_Political_Lying.htm The Art of Political Lying]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20070526040937/http://www.gullivercode.com/wiki/index.php/Proof_and_the_Pudding Arbuthnot and Gullivers Travels]

{{Arbuthnot family}}
{{PGLE}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Arbuthnot, John}}
[[Category:1667 births]]
[[Category:1735 deaths]]
[[Category:Alumni of the University of St Andrews]]
[[Category:Alumni of the University of Aberdeen]]
[[Category:Arbuthnot family|John Arbuthnot]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal Society]]
[[Category:17th-century Scottish medical doctors]]
[[Category:18th-century Scottish medical doctors]]
[[Category:18th-century Scottish mathematicians]]
[[Category:17th-century Scottish writers]]
[[Category:17th-century Scottish male writers]]
[[Category:18th-century Scottish writers]]
[[Category:18th-century Scottish male writers]]
[[Category:Scottish satirists]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians]]
[[Category:People from Kincardine and Mearns]]
[[Category:Freemasons of the Premier Grand Lodge of England]]
[[Category:Burials at St James's Church, Piccadilly]]