John Arbuthnot
John Arbuthnot was a prominent Scottish physician, mathematician, and writer, born in 1667 as the eldest of seven children to a minister. He studied mathematics and physics at Marischal College in Aberdeen, graduating in 1689. Arbuthnot made significant contributions to the field of probability, notably through his translation and expansion of Christian Huygens's work on games of chance, which introduced the term "probability" to English literature. After earning his medical degree in 1696, he served as a physician at the court of Queen Anne and became involved in political discourse, particularly regarding the Act of Union between England and Scotland.
Arbuthnot was well-connected in literary circles, collaborating with notable figures such as Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope as part of the Scriblerus Club, which aimed to satirize poor poetry. His political satires, featuring the character John Bull, gained wide popularity and served to critique contemporary politics. In the later years of his life, he returned to medical writing, publishing several works before his death in 1735. His diverse contributions to literature and science highlight his influential role in 18th-century British intellectual society.
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Subject Terms
John Arbuthnot
Physician
- Born: April 29, 1667
- Birthplace: Arbuthnott, Kincardineshire, Scotland
- Died: February 27, 1735
- Place of death: London, England
Biography
John Arbuthnot (born Arbuthnott) was the eldest of seven children born to a Scottish minister, Alexender Arbuthnott, and his wife, Margaret Lammie. He entered Marischal College in Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1681 to study mathematics and physics and graduated in 1689.
In 1692 Arbuthnot translated philosopher Christian Huygens’s discourse on probability, De ratiociniis in ludo aleae, into English and expanded the translation with his own writing on games of chance. This work, published anonymously and titled Of the Laws of Chance, marked the first time the word “probability” appeared in print.
After Of the Laws of Chance was published, Arbuthnot worked as a tutor and earned his medical degree in 1696 from the University of Saints Andrews in Oxford, England. He then published two works, most notably Essay on the Usefulness of Mathematical Learning (1701), before being appointed a medic in the court of Queen Anne of Great Britain and Ireland.
In 1704 Arbuthnot was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, a prestigious group of scientists. The following year he was assigned to a committee charged with overseeing the publication of the book Historia coelestis by fellow Royal Society member John Flamsteed. After Arbuthnot’s appointment as Queen Anne’s personal physician in 1705, he became politically involved in the debate over The Act of Union between England and Scotland. He published a pamphlet entitled A Sermon Preach’d to the People at the Mercat Cross of Edinburgh on the Subject of the Union in an effort to sway his fellow Scotsmen to unify with England.
Arbuthnot was a friend of noted satirist Jonathan Swift and published two political satires in collaboration with him. With Swift, Alexander Pope, John Gay, and Thomas Parnell, Arbuthnot founded the short-lived Scriblerus Club, a group of writers who satirized bad poetry. Arbuthnot also published five popular pamphlets which comically criticized the politics of the time. These pamphlets featured the character John Bull, who came to represent the common Englishman, and are the best known of Arbuthnot’s literary works. Arbuthnot returned to more serious writing in 1731 and published three books about medicine before he died in 1735.