1707-1782

Scottish physician who is considered the founder of modern military medicine. Based on the theory that putrefactive processes caused disease, Pringle believed that proper sanitary measures would maintain the health of the British army. He applied this concept to the administration of army camps and hospitals with considerable success. His ideas about hospital ventilation and camp sanitation are discussed in his Observations on the Diseases of the Army (1752). He also made important observations on dysentery, hospital and jail fevers, typhus fever, and influenza.