A pupil of the Dutch physician Hermann Boerhaave and the German anatomist Bernard Albinus at the University of Leiden (M.D., 1730), Pringle served as professor of moral philosophy at the University of Edinburgh (1734–44). In 1742 he became physician to the Earl of Stair, who was commander of the British army on the European continent, and served as physician general to the British forces in the Low Countries during part of the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–48). In London he became physician to the Duke of Cumberland (1749) and to George III (1774). He was created a baronet in 1766.

Pringle's chief published work was Observations on the Diseases of the Army (1752). Medical procedures outlined in the book addressed problems of hospital ventilation and camp sanitation by advancing rules for proper drainage, adequate latrines, and the avoidance of marshes. He recognized the various forms of dysentery as one disease, equated hospital and jail fevers (typhus), and coined the term influenza. His suggestion that military hospitals be treated as sanctuaries mutually protected by belligerents eventually led to the establishment of the Red Cross (1864).