ABSTRACT
Another member of Britain's 'big five," John James Pringle was a short, cherubic bachelor type, patient and tolerant. Throughout his life he cultivated an exquisitely refined style in speech and literary output. He was a connoisseur of music, wine, and art, cosmopolitan and bilingual - his French having been perfected by six months of assiduous attendance at celebrated Parisian nightspots. Pringle was also at all times an exemplar of sartorial perfection. But he was of course a great deal more than aesthete combined with dandy. Born in Scotland and an Edinburgh graduate, he spent two years in Vienna, Paris, and Berlin studying dermatology and joined the staff of London's Middlesex Hospital in 1883.
