A Pragmatic Aspect of Polymathy: The Alliance of Mathematics and Medicine in Liddel’s Time

Abstract

College and a keen antiquarian. 2 We are first told that Liddel, in 1579, aged about 18,and "doubtful what course to pursue, and despairing of his future fortune," happened to meet a fellow Scot, John Craig (d. 1620?), who was then professor of mathematics at Frankfurt an der Oder. 3 Now, by the way, Craig himself had matriculated at Frankfurt in 1573 and started teaching mathematics there at some point before his meeting with Liddel, but less than three years after their meeting, in 1582, he returned to Edinburgh and set himself up in medical practice. Craig was not a great mathematician, but he knew enough to copy down a technique he learned from the German mathematician Paul Wittich (c. 1546-1586), and on his return to Edinburgh, he showed this technique to John Napier (1550-1617). Craig wrote it down inside the back cover of his copy of Copernicus's De revolutionibus, which is now in Edinburgh University Library, and Napier was able to extend and refine this technique into the system of logarithms. Meanwhile, Craig himself rose to be chief among the personal physicians to James VI. 4 Returning to Liddel, his biographer tells us that, under Craig, Liddel "applied himself very diligently to mathematics and philosophy… and also entered upon the study of physic." Now, when Craig left Frankfurt it is said that he "sent his young