Isaac de Sequeira Samuda or Isaac de Sequeyra Samuda (born 1681, d. 1729) was a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

physician and poet.Edgar Samuel
‘Samuda, Isaac de Sequeira (bap. 1681, d. 1729)’
''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, January 2015. Retrieved 10 January 2017. He was of Portuguese-Jewish descent and was the first member of the Samuda family to settle in Britain. He was the first

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...

to be elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

(in 1727). In 1728, he gave an oration at the funeral of

Haham ''Hakham'' (or ''chakam(i), haham(i), hacham(i)''; he, חכם ', "wise") is a term in Judaism, meaning a wise or skillful man; it often refers to someone who is a great Torah scholar. It can also refer to any cultured and learned person: "He ...

David Nieto David Nieto (1654 – 10 January 1728) was the Haham of the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish community in London, later succeeded in this capacity by his son, Isaac Nieto. Nieto was born in Venice. He first practised as a physician and officiated ...

.Carla Costa Vieira
Observing the skies of Lisbon. Isaac de Sequeira Samuda, an ''estrangeirado'' in the Royal Society
''Notes & Records'', 20 June 2014 Volume 68, issue 2. Royal Society. DOI: 10.1098/rsnr.2013.0049. Retrieved 10 January 2107

Biography

He was the second son of a Portuguese merchant, Rodrigo de Sequeira, and his wife, Violante Nunes Rosa. He graduated from

Coimbra University The University of Coimbra (UC; pt, Universidade de Coimbra, ) is a public research university in Coimbra, Portugal. First established in Lisbon in 1290, it went through a number of relocations until moving permanently to Coimbra in 1537. The u ...

as a bachelor of medicine in 1702. With his friend Dr Samuel Nunes and two uncles, he was arrested in 1703, tortured and convicted, under duress, of practising Judaism, at an '' auto da fé'' in Lisbon on 19 October 1704, which meant the death penalty if convicted again. His maternal grandfather's widow was burnt at the stake in Lisbon in 1706, as was his only sister Maria de Melo Rosa in 1709. He escaped to London with his mother, an uncle and five aunts, to join his elder half- brother, Abraham de Almeida (Gaspar de Almeida de Sequeira). He joined the London Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in October 1709 and changed his name to Ishac de Sequeira Samuda. In March 1722, Samuda was admitted as a licentiate by the

Royal College of Physicians The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) is a British professional membership body dedicated to improving the practice of medicine, chiefly through the accreditation of physicians by examination. Founded by royal charter from King Henry VIII in 1 ...

. In February 1723, he translated a Portuguese report of a whale stranded in the

Tagus The Tagus ( ; es, Tajo ; pt, Tejo ; see #Name, below) is the longest river in the Iberian Peninsula. The river rises in the Montes Universales near Teruel, in mid-eastern Spain, flows , generally west with two main south-westward sections ...

, for the

, and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society on 27 June 1723, proposed by its secretary,

James Jurin James Jurin Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, FRCP (baptised 15 December 168429 March 1750) was an English scientist and physician, particularly remembered for his early work in capillary action and in ...

, and supported by Sir

Hans Sloane Sir Hans Sloane, 1st Baronet (16 April 1660 – 11 January 1753), was an Irish physician, naturalist, and collector, with a collection of 71,000 items which he bequeathed to the British nation, thus providing the foundation of the British Mu ...

. In April 1724, he delivered a paper to the society giving a detailed description by a Lisbon physician of the

yellow fever Yellow fever is a viral disease of typically short duration. In most cases, symptoms include fever, chills, loss of appetite, nausea, muscle pains – particularly in the back – and headaches. Symptoms typically improve within five days. In ...

epidemic in Portugal the previous year. He also provided six reports from Lisbon in Latin, by the astronomer João Baptista Carbone, which gave observations of the eclipses of the satellites of Jupiter made by Portuguese Jesuits in Paris, Lisbon, Rome and Peking. These were intended to be used to calculate longitudes. Samuda was known as a poet. In 1720, he contributed two poems in Portuguese to Daniel Lopes Laguna's ''Espejo fiel de la vida''. In 1724, he wrote a poem of 1,274 stanzas in Portuguese ''

ottava rima Ottava rima is a rhyming stanza form of Italian origin. Originally used for long poems on heroic themes, it later came to be popular in the writing of mock-heroic works. Its earliest known use is in the writings of Giovanni Boccaccio. The otta ...

'', arranged in thirteen cantos, titled "Viridiadas", after

Viriatus Viriathus (also spelled Viriatus; known as Viriato in Portuguese and Spanish; died 139 BC) was the most important leader of the Lusitanian people that resisted Roman expansion into the regions of western Hispania (as the Romans called it) or we ...

, the leader of the Lusitanian people who resisted Roman expansion into

Hispania Hispania ( la, Hispānia , ; nearly identically pronounced in Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, and Italian) was the Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula and its provinces. Under the Roman Republic, Hispania was divided into two provinces: Hispania ...

in the first century BC. After Samuda's death,

Jacob de Castro Sarmento Jacob Henriques de Castro Sarmento (6 May 1690 in Bragança, Portugal – 14 September 1762 in London) was a Portuguese '' estrangeirado'', physician, naturalist, poet and Deist. Life At the age of seventeen he entered the University of É ...

added another fifty stanzas and presented the manuscript to King João V of Portugal. David Nieto (1654–1728) was the rabbi of the

Bevis Marks Synagogue Bevis Marks Synagogue, officially Qahal Kadosh Sha'ar ha-Shamayim ( he, קָהָל קָדוֹשׁ שַׁעַר הַשָׁמַיִם, "Holy Congregation Gate of Heaven"), is the oldest synagogue in the United Kingdom in continuous use. It is loc ...

(the oldest synagogue in the United Kingdom) from 1701. Some of his attributes were immortalized by Samuda wrote an epitaph for his tomb, describing him as a "sublime theologian, a man of profound wisdom, remarkable physician, famous astronomer, sweet poet, fluent rhetorician, jocund author". In a sermon preached at the Nieto's funeral, and later printed, Samuda said that Nieto was an example to emulate and one that he followed. Samuda supported his arguments by drawing on works of the Holy Scriptures and authors of classical Greece and Rome. He quoted

Robert Boyle Robert Boyle (; 25 January 1627 – 31 December 1691) was an Anglo-Irish natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, alchemist and inventor. Boyle is largely regarded today as the first modern chemist, and therefore one of the founders of ...

Hermann Boerhaave Herman Boerhaave (, 31 December 1668 – 23 September 1738Underwood, E. Ashworth. "Boerhaave After Three Hundred Years." ''The British Medical Journal'' 4, no. 5634 (1968): 820–25. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20395297.) was a Dutch botanist ...

Willem 's Gravesande Willem Jacob 's Gravesande (26 September 1688 – 28 February 1742) was a Dutch mathematician and natural philosopher, chiefly remembered for developing experimental demonstrations of the laws of classical mechanics and the first experimental m ...

and

Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the grea ...

. Samuda died unmarried on 20 November 1729, in the parish of

St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate is a Church of England church in the Bishopsgate Without area of the City of London, and also, by virtue of lying outside the city's (now demolished) eastern walls, part of London's East End. Adjoining the buildi ...

, London. He was buried in the Portuguese Jews' "Velho" (Old) Cemetery in Mile End Road,

Stepney Stepney is a district in the East End of London in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The district is no longer officially defined, and is usually used to refer to a relatively small area. However, for much of its history the place name appl ...

, where Nieto is also buried.Mile End Cemeteries: London
on the website of the International Jewish Cemetery Project

References

External links

Royal Society web site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sequeira Samuda, Isaac De 1681 births 1729 deaths 18th-century Sephardi Jews British Sephardi Jews Fellows of the Royal Society Jewish scientists English people of Portuguese-Jewish descent English people of Portuguese descent