[1] Intending to become a doctor of medicine he entered the University of St Andrews, where he took his degree of M.D.
[1] On his return to Scotland, Patrick Abercromby is found practising as a physician in Edinburgh, where, besides his professional duties, he gave himself with characteristic zeal to the study of antiquities.
Living during the agitations for the union of England and Scotland, he took part as a Jacobite in the war of pamphlets inaugurated and sustained by prominent men on both sides of the Border, and he crossed swords with no less redoubtable a foe than Daniel Defoe in his Advantages of the Act of Security compared with those of the intended Union (Edinburgh, 1707), and A Vindication of the Same against Mr De Foe (ibid.).
But the work with which his name is permanently associated is his Martial Atchievements [sic] of the Scots Nation, issued in two large folios, vol.
He was a laborious and accomplished reader and investigator of all available authorities, as well manuscript as printed; while the roll of names of those who aided him includes every man of note in Scotland at the time, from Sir Thomas Craig and Sir George Mackenzie to Alexander Nisbet and Thomas Ruddiman.