John Obadiah Justamond (1737–1786) was an Anglo-French surgeon and writer.
Life
Justamond was a
Huguenot
The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...
, and acted as surgeon to
Westminster Hospital
Westminster Hospital was a hospital in London, England, founded in 1719. In 1834 a medical school attached to the hospital was formally founded.
In 1939 a newly built hospital and medical school opened in Horseferry Road, Westminster. In 1994 the ...
from 1770, having begun at the
Middlesex Hospital
Middlesex Hospital was a teaching hospital located in the Fitzrovia area of London, England. First opened as the Middlesex Infirmary in 1745 on Windmill Street, it was moved in 1757 to Mortimer Street where it remained until it was finally clos ...
in 1754 as a surgical pupil. At the Westminster he had a reputation as a reformer, and for palliation and cures of cancers. Justamond also acted as surgeon to the 2nd Regiment of the
Dragoon Guards.
He was a
Fellow of the Royal Society
Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathemat ...
.
Justamond was also employed by the
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
as a deputy keeper, a locum for
Daniel Solander
Daniel Carlsson Solander or Daniel Charles Solander (19 February 1733 – 13 May 1782) was a Swedish naturalist and an apostle of Carl Linnaeus.
Solander was the first university-educated scientist to set foot on Australian soil.
Biography ...
. His connection to the Museum was as son-in-law to
Matthew Maty
Matthew Maty (17 May 1718 – 2 July 1776), originally Matthieu Maty, was a Dutch physician and writer of Huguenot background, and after migration to England secretary of the Royal Society and the second principal librarian of the British Museum ...
: he had married Maty's daughter Elizabeth. Shortly after Maty died he fell into debt, and lost his museum position of Assistant Librarian in 1778, being replaced by
Edward Whitaker Gray.
Works
Most of Justamond's works were medical. ''Notes on chirurgical cases, and observations'' (1773) was an anonymous attack on
William Bromfield
William Bromfield (24 January 1868 – 3 June 1950) was an English trade unionist and Labour Party politician from Leek in Staffordshire. He was the town's Member of Parliament (MP) for all but four of the years between 1918 and 1945.
Bromfi ...
and his ''Chirurgical Cases and Observations'' of the same year. His cancer cures and case notes, including use of
arsenic
Arsenic is a chemical element with the symbol As and atomic number 33. Arsenic occurs in many minerals, usually in combination with sulfur and metals, but also as a pure elemental crystal. Arsenic is a metalloid. It has various allotropes, ...
internally and externally, passed into the literature.
Fleetwood Churchill notes other remedies of his for
uterine cancer
Uterine cancer, also known as womb cancer, includes two types of cancer that develop from the tissues of the uterus. Endometrial cancer forms from the lining of the uterus, and uterine sarcoma forms from the muscles or support tissue of the ut ...
.
Thomas Spencer Wells
Sir Thomas Spencer Wells, 1st Baronet (3 February 181831 January 1897) was surgeon to Queen Victoria, a medical professor and president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.
Early life
He was born at St Albans, Hertfordshire and receive ...
wrote in 1860 that Justamond had anticipated cancer cures then recently in fashion in London.
Two of his best-known works were translations:
*''Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of Europeans in the East and West Indies'' (5 vols. 1776), translation from
Abbé Raynal, ''Histoire Politique des Deux Indes''.
*''Private Life of Louis XV'' (4 vols., 1781), translation from
Mouffle d'Angerville.
The translation from Raynal was from the second French edition (1774). Justamond had an assistant on it, as reported by
Joan Gideon Loten
Joan Gideon Loten (also spelt Johan or John, in school records as Johannes Gideon Looten) (16 May 1710 – 25 February 1789) was a Dutch servant in the colonies of the Dutch East India Company, the 29th Governor of Zeylan, Fellow of the Royal So ...
; and the assistant has tentatively been identified as the father of
John Gideon Millingen, Michiel Van Millingen. Justamond and a brother were prosperous after its publication, but also ran up debts. It was quite widely noticed, with ''
The Critical Review
''The Critical Review'' was a British publication appearing from 1756 to 1817. It was first edited by Tobias Smollett, from 1756 to 1763. Contributors included Samuel Johnson, David Hume, John Hunter, and Oliver Goldsmith.
Early years
The ...
'' and ''
Monthly Review'' approving of Justamond's work, while the ''
Edinburgh Magazine and Review
The ''Edinburgh Magazine and Review'' was a Scottish periodical, published monthly from 1773 to 1776. It was founded by Gilbert Stuart, who pursued an aggressive editorial line that eventually led to the magazine's demise.
History
The first num ...
'' found it insipid and scolded the author. The book was topical, in the year of the
American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...
, because Raynal commented on the grievances of the American colonists that were being raised against the British government. In 1775 the Philadelphia printer
James Humphreys had printed translated extracts from Raynal's work as the pamphlet ''The Sentiments of a Foreigner, on the Disputes of Great-Britain with America''.
''A Philosophical and Political History of the British Settlements and Trade in North America'' (Edinburgh, 1779) was a part of Justamond's translation. Israel, who devotes a chapter to the ''Histoire Philosophique'', refers to a 1776 Edinburgh edition under this title: at least one Edinburgh edition was a pirate version. The coverage of the American colonies was eulogistic about
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
, less so in the cases of
New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the Can ...
and
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
.
Justamond wrote for the ''
English Review
''The English Review'' was an English-language literary magazine published in London from 1908 to 1937. At its peak, the journal published some of the leading writers of its day.
History
The magazine was started by 1908 by Ford Madox Hueffer (la ...
''.
He also completed the edition of the ''Works'' of
Lord Chesterfield
Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, (22 September 169424 March 1773) was a British statesman, diplomat, and man of letters, and an acclaimed wit of his time.
Early life
He was born in London to Philip Stanhope, 3rd Earl of Ches ...
, begun by Maty. He commented on the
Ciceronian
Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the esta ...
manner of two of Chesterfield's political speeches, not knowing that the author was
Samuel Johnson.
[Korshin, p. 248 note 11 and p. 253.]
References
*Paul J. Korshin, ''The Johnson-Chesterfield Relationship: A New Hypothesis'' PMLA Vol. 85, No. 2 (Mar. 1970), pp. 247–259. Published by: Modern Language Association. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1261399
Notes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Justamond, John Obadiah
1737 births
1786 deaths
Huguenots
British surgeons
British medical writers
Fellows of the Royal Society
18th-century British translators