ARMSTRONG, JOHN. 



ARMSTRONG, JOHN. 



the chief work* ore, Jac. Trigland. ' Dm recht-ghetnatichden Christen,' 

 Amsterdam. 1815, 4 to. : Jacobus Leydekker, 'Ecra Tmn do Nationale 

 Synod, van DordregV Amsterdam, 1705-1707. 4to. ; 'AcU Synodi 

 NationalU.' Ac., Dort, 1680. 4lo. The writers on the Council of 

 Dott are enumerated by Fabricius, ' Kbliotheea Gnaca,' lib. 6, a 4, 

 Tol. xi. p. 723. Burnet, on the STententh Article of the Knglinh 

 Charch, nuke* some jadicioui remarks on the question how fr 

 iU Articlas and Formularies are Calvinutic or Annioian. Mosheim 

 ( Bnrle*istfal History ') had w*U (tudied the whole controversy, 

 and bin account U impartial Professor Stuart, of Andover, published 

 favourable and able treatise on ' The Creed of Arminius, with a 

 brief Sketch of hu Life and Time*, 1 in the ' Biblical Repertory,' 

 Andover, 1831, ToL i. Na 2, p. 228-808. 



(Abridged from the Biographical Dictionary of Ike Society for the 

 rXfmno* of L'tefut Kitmeltdft.) 



AKMSTUONO, JOHN, was a native of Roxburghshire, being born 

 at CasUeton in Liddleedale, The date of hu birth is generally placed 

 about 1709. HU father wai a clergyman of the Scotch church. He 

 eompleted hi* education at the University of Edinburgh, where he 

 tadfcd physic, and took hi* degree in 1732. During the course of hu 

 professional education be wrote verses, a* mot boys of talent have 

 ever don*, and amuaed himself with drawing and flute-playing. Arm- 

 strong coon laboured to obtain professional reputation by various 

 publications ; and in this walk he did not wholly confina himself to 

 dry disquisition, but attacked the ignorance of the apothecaries in a 

 satire entitled An Esaay for Abridging the Study of Physic.' This 

 was published anonymously in 1735. He was then settled in London 

 as a phyucuo. His practice, it would appear, was very small; and 

 probably be did not take the wisest course for professional success. 

 About 1737 he published the 'Economy of Love,' a poem which could 

 not be published in our days, and which was an outrage upon decency 

 a hundred and twenty years ago. The author probably thought that 

 be was justified in putting the drapery of elegant language and harmo- 

 nious versification upon a physiological subject He wag mistaken. HU 

 second poetical production, 'The Art of Preserving Health,' which 

 appeared in 1 744, redeemed his name from the somewhat juat charge of 

 being a pander to licentiousness. It is upon this work that the reputa- 

 ation of Armstrong retts. His medical dissertations are obsolete, and it 

 may be doubted if they ever possessed any great merit. His satires, 

 whether in prose or Terse, have lost their point. But ' The Art of 

 Preserving Health' rtill finds a place in those ponderous collections of 

 Terees called ' The English Foots.' Until the commencement of the 

 present century it was held to be one of the finest didactic poems in 

 our language. It is creditable to our own age that didactic poem* are 

 not res/I. A didactic poem is a species of composition that professes to 

 describe and explain, with inversion and circumlocution, with pompous 

 epithet and long-drawn simile, something that might be told with 

 much greater force and clearness in plain prose. The production of 

 such poems at all, and especially the success of them, are proofs of the 

 anti-poetical tendencies of the age in which they appear. There is no 

 doubt considerable vigour in some of Armstrong's best passages, as in 

 other productions of the same class ; but as a work of art to be regarded 

 as a whole, 'The Art of Preserving Health ' is worthless. Armstrong 

 appears to have continued in London till 1760, when he was appointed 

 physician to the army in Germany. This appointment he held until 

 the peace in 1763. It is said that he owed his advancement to the 

 interest of John Wilkes. He had the merit of subsequently quarrelling 

 with this profligate demagogue ; and perhaps it is creditable to him 

 that Churchill was also amongit his enemies. On the other hand, he 

 enjoyed and retained the friendship of Thomson. Whatever might 

 be Armstrong's abilities and acquirements, ho chiefly owed his want 

 of professions! success to his imprudence and bis indolence. In his 

 later years he was preserved from indigence by Ms half-pay as physi- 

 cian to the army ; and such wss the extreme frugality of his habits, that 

 he was found, at his decease in 1779, to have saved upwards of three 

 thousand pounds. Armstrong's shorter poetical piece* were collected 

 under the title of ' Miscellanies,' in 1770. Under the name of Lancelot 

 TempU he published, in 1758, a collection of 'Sketches or Essay*;' 

 and 'A Short Ramble through France and Italy.' in 1771. His last 

 publication was a quarto volume of 'Medical Essays,' 1773. The 

 immediate cause of his death, in 1779, was an accident which ho met 

 with in getting into a carrUge. ( Aikin, General Biography ; Chalmers, 

 Brilah Poett ; Watt, Bibliotheca Brilann. ; Armstrong'* World.) 



(Abridged from the Biographical .Dictionary of the Society for the 

 D./UOO* of fvful KnoUJgt.) 



ARMSTRONG. JOHN, was born on the 8th of May, 1784, at Ayres 

 Qusy, near the united towns of Biahopweannouth and Sunderland in 

 ths county of Durham. Hi* father was the superintendent of some 

 bus-works, and was an uneducated man, but especially esteemed for 

 his abilities and integrity. John was the only survivor of several 

 children. Hia education was neglected till be wss eight years of age, 

 when be was put under the car* of a good master, and pursued his 

 studies with ardour and success. He early manifested an inclination 

 for th* medical profession, and accordingly, on his leaving school at the 

 an of sixteen, he wa put on trial with a surgeon and apothecary at 

 Monkwearniouth. This situation he soon quitted, contrary to the 

 wishes of his parents, snd for the next two or three years led a desul- 

 tory life at horn?. At the age of sighteen or nineteen the savings of an 



affectionate mother furnished the means for his entering as a medical 

 student in the University of Edinburgh, where he passed three season* 

 absorbed in hi* professional pursuits. In June 1807 be took the 

 degree of M.D., his thesis being ' De Causis tnorbomm hydropicorum, 

 rationeque iis medendi.' In the same year he settled in lodgings at 

 Bishopwearmouth, and there commenced the practice of his profession. 

 Such was his success that at the end of four years we find him physi- 

 cian to the Sunderland Infirmary, living in a large house, setting up 

 his carriage, and marrying the daughter of a gentleman of his native 

 county. He had become the popular physician of his town and neigh- 

 bourhood. 



His first appearance as an author was in a paper communicated to 

 the 'Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal for Jsnuary 1813,' on 

 'The Brain-Fever produced by Intoxication ; ' and this was soon fol- 

 lowed by a volume on ' The Puerperal Fever,' which at once gained 

 for its author a reputation beyoud the limits of his own neighbourhood. 

 Forty-three cases of puerperal fever had occurred within a few months 

 in the practice of five medical men of Sunderland, and of these oases 

 only five had terminated fatally. The unusual success of the treat- 

 ment was attributed by Dr. Armstrong to the bold and novel measure 

 of very free bleeding and purging in the stage of excitement. 



In 1816 he published hu work on ' Typhus.' It became immediately 

 popular, passed through three editions in three years, and made his 

 name well known, so that a contemporary reviewer writes, "there is 

 scarcely a practitioner even in our most sequestered villages who has 

 not read Dr. Armstrong, or who does not profess to act upon his 

 maxims." ('Edinburgh Med. and Surg. Journal') These maxims 

 consisted chiefly in recommending active depletion in the early stage 

 of typhus, a practice which had been previously gaining ground among 

 well-informed physicians, but possessed all the attractions of novelty 

 and boldness for the profession in general. HU advico was probably 

 good at the time it was given, but he erred in laying down absolute 

 rules of treatment, instead of restricting their application to the then 

 prevailing epidemic. No judicious physician iu the present day 

 would treat typhus as Dr. Armstrong recommended, and he himself 

 lived to see a fever prevail in which active depletion was quite inad- 

 missible. A lasting benefit was conferred on medical science by his 

 dUtiuction of the simple, inflammatory, and congestive forms of fever, 

 and by hu clear description of their successive stages. The same 

 volume contains a chapter on Inflammation, in which he applies the 

 term sub-acute to those forms of inflammation where the symptoms 

 and effects are milder than in the acute, while the duration of the 

 disorder is not such as to entitle it to the term chronic. This dutinc- 

 tion, one of practical importance in reference to the treatment, had 

 been previously established by CorvUart in inflammation of the peri- 

 cardium, but had not been stated with respect to inflammatory dioaasfts 

 in general. 



His professional ambition keeping pace with hu growing reputation. 

 Dr. Armstrong repaired to London in February, 1818, and established 

 himself in lodgings in Great James-street. This was a trying period of 

 his life, for he was living alone, having left hU wife and children behind 

 him at Durham. Nevertheless, bis success was as remarkable, and 

 almost as rapid, as it hod been in Sunderland, and that in spite of an 

 event which would have very differently affected the fortunes of most 

 men. On commencing practice iu London it was necessary to become a 

 licentiate of the College of Physicians. Dr. Armstrong accordingly 

 presented himself for examination, and to the surprise of every one he 

 was rejected. It seems strange that a distinguished writer and practical 

 physician should have been unable to produce the little knowledge 

 which was usually required on these occasions ; yet there U no doubt 

 that such was the fact The mode of conducting the examination 

 orally in Latin may partly explain the failure of an imperfectly 

 educated man ; but no circumstances have transpired which can 

 justify the resentment subsequently entertained by Dr. Armstrong, 

 however natural the feeling may have been in one possessed of so huge 

 a share of self-esteem. It U probable that this rejection rather pro- 

 moted than retarded his professional success; for the College of 

 Physicians was unpopular among those medical practitioners whose 

 support is most valuable to a young physician, and the event was 

 attributed rather to unworthy motives on the part of the examiners 

 than to any imperfection in the knowledge of so popular an author. 

 Thus it happened that he was, soon afterwards, elected Physician to 

 the Fever Hospital, the trustees suspending, on hu account, one of 

 their bye-laws which required the physicians to be members of the 

 Royal College. 



In 1821 he joined with Mr. Edward Grainger in establishing the 

 Webb-street School of Medicine, where he lectured on the practice of 

 physic, and contributed no little to the success of the school. Ii 

 lectures were exceedingly popular. He was confident and earnest in 

 hu manner; his language was fluent and expressive; and his general 

 arguments well illustrated by reference to particular facts. Such 

 merits were marred however by occasional bursts of egotistical and 

 bombastic declamation. He regarded himself ai a great discoverer 

 a great reformer of medicine ; and lectured in such a spirit as ha 

 conceived to be becoming in a modern Sydenham. Ho professed the 

 utmost contempt for medical learning, and indulged in an unmeaning 

 ridicule of schools and colleges. He spoke of Cullen and other writer* 

 in terms which displayed more ignorance of their works than fairness 



