The correspondence of james jurin (1684-1750): Physician and Secretary to the Royal Society: 39 (Clio Medica) - Tapa dura

"This collection of 277 letters, all translated into English, provides invaluable insight into the minds of many contemporary men (and women) of letters. ...As it stands, Rusnock's fine and useful work serves as a model for future compilers of correspondence..." in: Bulletin of the History of Medicine, Vol. 72, Issue 2, 1998

James Jurin (1684-1750) occupied a central place in the medical and scientific circles of Augustan and Georgian England. His dispassionate yet forceful advocacy of smallpox inoculation using an innovative statistical approach brought him widespread recognition both in Britain and abroad. He was Secretary to the Royal Society for seven years and participated vigorously in the most important scientific debates of the period. Jurin's correspondence, recently made available to the public, provides rich material for the study of eighteenth-century natural philosophy and medicine, especially of the smallpox inoculation debates. This volume reproduces a broad and valuable selection of letters, as well as a list of Jurin's publications and a calendar of the complete correspondence. The introductory biographical essay describes how Jurin combined a career as a successful London physician with that of a natural philosopher.