An epistle from Dr. Arbuthnot

We need to reclaim Dr. John Arbuthnot from literature for statistics. I doubt that he would thank us for it. He was by all accounts a delightful man, a friend of Pope's and of Swift's, not only witty and hugely and variously talented but modest as well. It is reasonable to assume that he was popular with his contemporaries on the basis of his agreeable conversation in the coffee-house rather than for his skills as a calculator. Indeed, he is now chiefly remembered as a literary character rather than as a mathematical figure. Yet, his literary fame is of a peculiar kind. We remember him for something he did not write and have all but forgotten that his most lasting creation is by him. It is a safe bet that more people can name Pope's Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot than any work by Dr. John himself and how many know that he is the creator of John Bull?

Arbuthnot was born in 1667 in the Scottish village of the same name that lies between Montrose and Stonehaven, a few miles inland from Inverbervie. He showed an early interest in mathematics and in 1692 translated into English the important treatise on probability, De Ratiociniis in Ludo Aleae, by Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens (1629–1695). He originally studied at Marischal College Aberdeen but graduated in 1696 from St Andrews with a medical degree.