John Obadiah Justamond

John Obadiah Justamond (1737–1786) was an Anglo-French surgeon and writer.

Life

Justamond was a Huguenot, and acted as surgeon to Westminster Hospital from 1770,[1] having begun at the Middlesex Hospital in 1754 as a surgical pupil. At the Westminster he had a reputation as a reformer, and for palliation and cures of cancers.[2][3] Justamond also acted as surgeon to the 2nd Regiment of the Dragoon Guards.[4] He was a Fellow of the Royal Society.[5]

Justamond was also employed by the British Museum as a deputy keeper, a locum for Daniel Solander. His connection to the Museum was as son-in-law to Matthew Maty: 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.[6][7][8]

Works

Most of Justamond's works were medical. Notes on chirurgical cases, and observations (1773) was an anonymous attack on William Bromfield and his Chirurgical Cases and Observations of the same year.[9][10] His cancer cures and case notes, including use of arsenic internally and externally, passed into the literature.[11] Fleetwood Churchill notes other remedies of his for uterine cancer.[12] Thomas Spencer Wells wrote in 1860 that Justamond had anticipated cancer cures then recently in fashion in London.[13]

Two of his best-known works were translations:[4]

  • 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).[14] Justamond had an assistant on it, as reported by Joan Gideon Loten; 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.[15] It was quite widely noticed, with The Critical Review and Monthly Review approving of Justamond's work, while the Edinburgh Magazine and Review found it insipid and scolded the author. The book was topical, in the year of the American Revolution, 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.[16] A Philosophical and Political History of the British Settlements and Trade in North America (Edinburgh, 1779) was a part of Justamond's translation.[17] 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, less so in the cases of New England and Virginia.[16][18]

Justamond wrote for the English Review.[19] He also completed the edition of the Works of Lord Chesterfield, begun by Maty. He commented on the Ciceronian manner of two of Chesterfield's political speeches, not knowing that the author was Samuel Johnson.[20]

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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
  1. "The Westminster Hospital Reports". Internet Archive. 1885. p. 18. Retrieved 27 November 2014.
  2. William James Erasmus Wilson (1845). The History of the Middlesex Hospital during the first century of its existence. Churchill. p. 246.
  3. George McClellan (1848). Principles and practice of surgery. Grigg, Elliot and co. pp. 399 note. Retrieved 24 April 2013.
  4. Robert Watt (1824). Bibliotheca Britannica, Or a General Index to British and Foreign Literature. Constable. p. 560. Retrieved 23 April 2013.
  5. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. The Society. 1775. p. 14. Retrieved 23 April 2013.
  6. Alexander J. P. Raat (2010). The Life of Governor Joan Gideon Loten (1710–1789): A Personal History of a Dutch Virtuoso. Uitgeverij Verloren. p. 435. ISBN 978-90-8704-151-9. Retrieved 23 April 2013.
  7. Lee, Sidney, ed. (1894). "Maty, Matthew" . Dictionary of National Biography. 37. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  8. British Museum (1814). Acts and Votes of Parliament, Relating to the Brits Museum: With the Statutes and Rules Thereof and the Succession of Trustees and Officers. Cox. p. 140. Retrieved 24 April 2013.
  9. Dictionary of Anonymous and Pseudonymous English Literature. Ardent Media. p. 201. GGKEY:5SY12CPT9ZP. Retrieved 24 April 2013.
  10. Peachey, GC (1915). "William Bromfield, 1713-1792". Proc. R. Soc. Med. 8 (Sect Hist Med): 103–26 [125]. PMC 2003651. PMID 19978949.
  11. William Cullen (1803). The Edinburgh Practice of Physic, Surgery, and Midwifery: Preceded by an Abstract of the Theory of Medicine, and the Nosology of Dr. Cullen: and Including Upwards of Six Hundred Authentic Formulae from the Books of St. Bartholomew's, St. George's, St. Thomas's, Guy's, and Other Hospitals in London, and from the Lectures and Writings of the Most Eminent Public Teachers. Surgery. G. Kearsley. pp. 386–400. Retrieved 24 April 2013.
  12. Fleetwood Churchill (1841). Outlines of the principal diseases of females, chiefly for the use of students. Carey & Hart. p. 183 note 3. Retrieved 24 April 2013.
  13. Spencer Wells (1860). Cancer Cures and Cancer Curers. John Churchill. pp. 12–3. Retrieved 24 April 2013.
  14. Peter S. Jimack (2006). A History of the Two Indies. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 279. ISBN 978-0-7546-4043-1. Retrieved 24 April 2013.
  15. Alexander J. P. Raat (2010). The Life of Governor Joan Gideon Loten (1710-1789): A Personal History of a Dutch Virtuoso. Uitgeverij Verloren. pp. 434–5. ISBN 978-90-8704-151-9.
  16. Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink; Manfred Tietz, eds. (1991). Lectures de Raynal (in French). Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation. pp. 256–8 and 306–7. ISBN 978-0729404143.
  17. Charlotte Lennox (8 September 2008). Euphemia. Broadview Press. p. 437. ISBN 978-1-77048-044-5. Retrieved 24 April 2013.
  18. Jonathan I. Israel (2011). Democratic Enlightenment: Philosophy, Revolution and Human Rights 1750–1790. Oxford University Press. p. 428. ISBN 978-0-19-954820-0.
  19. Derek Roper (1978). Reviewing Before the Edinburgh, 1788-1802. University of Delaware Press. pp. 309–. ISBN 978-0-87413-128-4.
  20. Korshin, p. 248 note 11 and p. 253.
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