In spite of the encouragement of Dr. Fell, the ‘English Atlas’ was not successful from a pecuniary point of view, and Pitt also had losses in building speculations. On 13 April 1685 he was arrested at Obadiah Walker's lodgings at Oxford on a suit for 1,000l. (Wood, op. cit. iii. 138), and was imprisoned in the Fleet from 20 April 1689 to 16 May 1691. He described his troubles in a very interesting little volume, ‘The Cry of the Oppressed, being a true and tragical account of the unparallel'd sufferings of multitudes of poor imprisoned debtors in most of the gaols of England, together with the case of the publisher,’ London, 1691, 12mo. This contains a remarkable account of the actual condition of prisoners for debt, not in London alone, but in many other towns, as Pitt conducted a large correspondence with fellow sufferers throughout the country. He endeavoured to get a bill passed through parliament for their relief. The book is illustrated with twelve cuts describing the cruelties of gaolers in a startling chapbook style of art. It is full of personal details, and is useful for the topographical history of Westminster, where Pitt built, besides other houses, one which he let to Jeffreys, in what is now Delahay Street.
Pitt also wrote ‘A Letter to [Rev. George Hickes] the authour of a book intituled some Discourses upon Dr. Burnet and Dr. Tillotson, occasioned by the late funeral sermon of the former upon the latter,’ London, 1695, 4to, with more particulars about his money troubles; and ‘An Account of one Ann Jefferies now living in the county of Cornwall, who was fed for six months by a small sort of airy people called fairies, and of the strange and wonderful cures she performed,’ London, 1696, small 8vo. Of the latter work there are two editions which vary slightly; the book is reprinted in Morgan's ‘Phœnix Britannicus,’ 1732, 4to, pp. 545–51, and in C. S. Gilbert's ‘Cornwall,’ i. 107–14. At the time of his death, which took place between 1696 and 1700, he had almost completed a catalogue of English writers.
Pitt married a Miss Upman. He is described by John Dunton as ‘an honest man every inch and thought of him, and … had fathomed the vast body of learning. … His wit and virtues were writ legibly in his face, and he had a great deal of sweetness in his natural temper’ (Life and Errors, 1818, i. 233–4). Anthony Wood was indebted to him for small items of information (Life, vols. ii. and iii. passim; and Fasti, ed. Bliss, ii. 27).
[Boase and Courtney's Bibliotheca Cornubiensis, i. 271, iii. 1314, Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. iv. 142, v. 105.]
PITT, ROBERT, M.D. (1653–1713), physician, son of Robert Pitt, was born at Blandford Forum, Dorset, in 1653. He matriculated at Wadham College, Oxford, on 2 April 1669, and was elected to a scholarship there in 1670. He graduated B.A. in 1672, was elected a fellow of his college in 1674, graduated M.A. in 1675, M.B. in 1678, and M.D. on 16 Feb. 1682. He taught anatomy at Oxford, and was elected F.R.S. on 20 Dec. 1682. In 1684 he settled in London, and was admitted a candidate or member of the College of Physicians on 22 Dec. He was created a fellow by the new charter of James II, and admitted on 12 April 1687. He was a censor in 1687 and 1702. He lived in 1685 in the parish of St. Peter-le-Poer, in the city of London; in 1703, and till his death, in Hatton Garden. On the death of Francis Bernard [q. v.] he was, on 23 Feb. 1697–8, elected physician to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and held office till 1707. He took an active part in the controversy which followed the establishment of a dispensary by the College of Physicians in 1696, and published in 1702 ‘The Craft and Frauds of Physick exposed,’ dedicated to Sir William Prichard, president, and to the governors of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and written to show the small cost of the really useful drugs, the worthlessness of some expensive ones, and the folly of taking too much physic. The book gives a clear exposition of the therapeutics of that day, and is full of shrewd observations. Sarsaparilla, which for more than a hundred years later was a highly esteemed drug, had been detected by Pitt to be inert, and he condemned the use of bezoar, of powder of vipers, of mummy, and of many other once famous therapeutic agents, on the ground that accurate tests proved them of no effect. A second and third edition appeared in 1703. In 1704 he published ‘The Antidote, or the Preservative of Life and Health and the Restorative of Physick to its Sincerity and Perfection,’ and in 1705 ‘The Frauds and Villainies of the Common Practice of Physic demonstrated to be curable by the College Dispensary.’ He was attacked by Joseph Browne (fl. 1706) [q. v.] in 1704 in a book entitled ‘The Modern Practice of Physick vindicated from the groundless imputations of Dr. Pitt.’ He also published a paper in the ‘Philosophical Transactions’ for 1691 on the weight of the land tortoise. The observations which were made in conjunction with Sir George Ent, M.D. [q. v.], compare the weight of the reptile before and after hibernation for a series of years.
Pitt married Martha, daughter of John
