James Bell Pettigrew
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James Bell Pettigrew FRS FRSE FRCPE |
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| Born |
26 May 1834 Roxhill, Calderbank, Lanarkshire |
| Died | 30 January 1908 (aged 73) |
| Nationality | British |
| Education |
University of Glasgow; University of Edinburgh |
| Notable work |
Design in Nature; Animal Locomotion: or Walking, Swimming and Flying |
| Medical career | |
| Institutions |
Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh; Hunterian Museum; Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh |
| Research | Anatomy; Pathology |
| Notable prizes | Croonian Lectures |
James Bell Pettigrew, MD FRS FRSE FRCPE (26 May 1834 – 30 January 1908) was a Scottish naturalist and museum curator. He was a distinguished naturalist in Edinburgh and London, and at St Andrews University from 1875 until his death. Pettigrew was an internationally acknowledged authority on animal locomotion.
Pettigrew was born at Roxhill, Calderbank, Lanarkshire, the son of Robert Pettigrew. He was educated at the Free West Academy in Airdrie and at the Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh. After a late start in Medicine in Edinburgh, Pettigrew flourished under the tutelage of John Goodsir with whom he developed a programme of research into the morphology of the human heart. Most unusually, as an undergraduate, he was invited to deliver the Croonian Lectures of the Royal Society and the Royal College of Physicians of London in 1860. In these lectures, Pettigrew advanced a remarkable discussion of the anatomical arrangement of the musculature of the heart. In 1861 he graduated in medicine from Edinburgh and became House Surgeon at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. From an early age, Pettigrew demonstrated a remarkable flair for morphological analysis and an analytical grasp of natural history.
In 1862, Pettigrew accepted the post of Assistant Curator at the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in London. He held the position for five years. In 1867 he retired to Ireland (possibly suffering from a psychiatric disorder) to study the flight of birds and bats. He had a passionate interest in animal locomotion and, more particularly, in the theory of flight, and around the turn of the century made several prototypes of an ornithopter of his own design.
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