{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,4]],"date-time":"2026-05-04T00:43:53Z","timestamp":1777855433124,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":75,"publisher":"SAGE Publications","issue":"1","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2009,2,1]],"date-time":"2009-02-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1233446400000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/page\/policies\/text-and-data-mining-license"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["J Med Biogr"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2009,2]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>John Hyacinth de Magellan, whose Portuguese name was Jo\u00e3o Hyacintho de Magalhaens, though not a doctor nevertheless had many contacts with doctors and showed a genuine interest in disseminating medical news to his many friends and correspondents in Europe. The abundant and less formal correspondence with his friend Ribeiro Sanches forms the greater part of the work but in letters to other correspondents, including Trudaine de Montigny, Condorcet, Volta, J A Euler, Fabroni and Johann III Bernoulli, we find comments on medical subjects. The Sanches letters are particularly interesting because they are private, friend-to-friend letters that convey spontaneous and sincere thoughts and feelings.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1258\/jmb.2008.008025","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2009,2,3]],"date-time":"2009-02-03T14:27:41Z","timestamp":1233671261000},"page":"39-46","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["John Hyacinth de Magellan (1722\u201390): 18th century physicist with views on medical matters"],"prefix":"10.1258","volume":"17","author":[{"given":"Manuel","family":"Fernandes-Thomaz","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]}],"member":"179","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2009,2,1]]},"reference":[{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C1","unstructured":"John Hyacinth de Magellan, whose Portuguese name was Jo\u00e3o Hyacintho de Magalhaens, became FRS in 1774 after being correspondent of the Paris Academy of Sciences in 1771 for his work in scientific instruments. See the biographical note of Rod Home, in:\n                      Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: In Association with the British Academy: From the Earliest Times to the Year 2000\n                      , Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C2","unstructured":"Sanches' diary, his\n                      Journal\n                      , 1768\u201382 refers to important people, notes, copies of letters, medical recipes, personal thoughts, etc., with many notes each day"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C3","unstructured":"The Gentleman's Magazine\n                      1790:184"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C4","unstructured":"A few are Apothecaries"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C5","unstructured":"The publication of the correspondence of John Hyacinth de Magellan forms a project led by Rod Home (Melbourne, Australia), Isabel Malaquias and the author of this article"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C6","unstructured":"French doctor who devoted himself to making medicine understandable to ordinary people"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C7","unstructured":"French doctor, worked in hospitals, was a member of the faculty of medicine and of the Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 Royale de M\u00e9decine. He wrote a biographical note on Sanches' life that appeared in the Catalogue written for the auction of Sanches library"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C8","unstructured":"Magellan is not well informed in this point since he puts the Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 Royale de M\u00e9decine and the Faculty of Medicine in the same lot which was not correct, as he recognizes in the extract of the next quotation of the letter of 1782"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C9","unstructured":"A society created in 1778, under the impulse of Lassone and Vicq d'Azir who was its sole secretary and that had in view to counteract the conservatism and sclerosis of the Faculty of Medicine of Paris"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C10","unstructured":"This and other quotes from Magellan's letters to Sanches are translations from the Portuguese"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C11","unstructured":"This was an extremely important health problem in the eighteenth century as can be seen for instance in the paper by Christine Hallett in\n                      Medical History\n                      2005:49:1\u201328"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C12","unstructured":"French Intendant G\u00e9n\u00e9ral des Finances, member of the Conseil du Commerce of France and member of the Paris Academy of Sciences where he devoted himself to physics and chemistry"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C13","unstructured":"William Hey (the name is not correctly spelled in Magellan's letter), distinguished surgeon of Leeds, known to Priestley and Sir John Pringle, who founded the Leeds Medical Society and became president of the Philosophical and Literary Society of Leeds in 1783"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C14","unstructured":"English physician who studied at Edinburgh and Leiden and became established in Manchester"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C15","unstructured":"Studied at Edinburgh and then moved to Dublin. Later he proceeded MD at Glasgow and finished his life lecturing medicine at home"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C16","unstructured":"Marie Jean Antoine de Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet, well-known French politician, philosopher and mathematician, a defender of human rights who held positions of the greatest relevance in the French administration and was a member of the Paris Academy of Sciences. Most historians accept suicide as the most likely cause of his death, but other possibilities cannot be ruled out (see the paper by R\u00e9gis Olry and Genevi\u00e8ve Dupont in\n                      Journal of Medical Biography\n                      2006;\n                      14\n                      :183\u20136)"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C17","unstructured":"We could not find a physician or surgeon with this name. However there was a John Herdman, born in Dunning, Scotland, in 1716 (or 1717), who was a member of the Medical Society of Edinburgh and who published two books (\n                      An Essay on the Causes and Phenomena of Animal Life.\n                      Edinburgh: Manners and Miller, 1795 and\n                      A Plain Discourse on the Causes, Symptoms, Nature, and Cure of the Prevailing Epidemical Disease Termed Influenza\n                      . Edinburgh: Manners and Miller, 1803). It is not clear whether this was the surgeon to whom Magellan refers"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C18","unstructured":"Swedish botanist who studied with Linnaeus, went to London in 1760 and was elected FRS in 1764, having been one of Magellan's proposers for the Royal Society"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C19","unstructured":"Phytolacca Americana\n                      \u2013 plant original of America and Asia, still used today as a homeopathic medicine in the treatment of amygdalitis"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C20","unstructured":"English surgeon of French origin, FRS who wrote a book about the treatment of cancerous disorders. He was also a candidate for the post of surgeon at the Middlesex Hospital in 1765 (see Erasmus Wilson FRS on \u2018The history of the Middlesex Hospital during the first century of its existence\u2019)"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C21","unstructured":"Daniel Minors, a member of the clinical staff of the Middlesex Hospital. Daniel's father was Isaac Minors who was elected to the body of surgeons of the Hospital on 29 November 1753 and resigned his appointment on 4 February 1779 and died in November of that year. Isaac's son, Daniel Minors subsequently was elected and died in February 1801 (see Erasmus Wilson FRS on \u2018The history of the Middlesex Hospital during the first century of its existence\u2019)"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C22","unstructured":"Fran\u00e7ois Rozier, founder of the\n                      Journal d'Observations sur la Physique, l'Histoire Naturelle et sur les Arts et M\u00e9tiers\n                      , also known as\n                      Journal de Physique\n                      or\n                      Journal de Rozier"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C23","unstructured":"Scottish Physician, \u2018father of military medicine\u2019"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C24","unstructured":"Swedish doctor who wrote a thesis with Linnaeus about the change of diet"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C25","unstructured":"English surgeon famous for his works on cancer. However another surgeon, Melmoth Guy, is also known for his work on cancer and wrote a book whose title\n                      A Select Number of Schirrous and Cancerous Cases Successfully Treated Without Cutting, by the Peculiar Remedy of Melmoth Guy, Surgeon\n                      (London, 1777) seems to be the case mentioned in the letter"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C26","unstructured":"Pehr af Bjerk\u00e9n, Swedish doctor who studied with Linnaeus and made a thesis about the diseases of navigations and their treatment"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C27","unstructured":"Swedish doctor who studied with Linnaeus on species of grasses of economical importance"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C28","unstructured":"Russian mathematician and astronomer, son of the celebrated mathematician Leonhardt Euler (1707\u201383)"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C29","unstructured":"Hulme had written an Edinburgh University Thesis on the nature, the causes and the cure of scurvy"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C30","volume-title":"A Safe and Easy Remedy Proposed for the Relief of the Stone and Gravel, the Scurvy, Gout, &c. and for the Destruction of Worms in the Human Body \u2026 Together with an Extemporaneous Method of Impregnating Water \u2026 with Fixed Air","author":"Hulme N","year":"1778"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C31","volume-title":"Description of a Glass Apparatus, for Making Mineral Waters, Like Those of Pyrmont, Spa, Seltzer, &c. \u2026 Together with the Description of Some New Eudiometers \u2026","author":"de Magellan JH","year":"1778"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C32","unstructured":"WillemseD.\n                      Suite d'un voyage aux Pays-Bas. Jo\u00e3o Jacinto de Magalh\u00e3es (1722\u20131790) et ses rapports avec Jean Henry van Swinden (1746\u20131823)\n                      . Paris: Arquivo do Centro Cultural Portugu\u00eas de Paris da Funda\u00e7\u00e3o Calouste Gulbenkian, VII, 1973"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C33","unstructured":"Known for his experiments on the toleration of the human body to heat"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C34","volume-title":"A Medical Commentary on Fixed Air","author":"Dobson M","year":"1779"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C35","volume-title":"De cura variolarum vaporarii ope apud Russos, etc","author":"Ribeiro Sanches AN","year":"1768"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C36","volume-title":"An Inquiry into the Connection Between the Present Price of Provisions, and the Size of Farms, with Remarks on Population as Affected Thereby \u2026","author":"English farmer, friend of Magellan who wrote on the economical value of large farms against the small ones","year":"1773"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C37","volume-title":"A Dissertation on the Artificial Medicated Water Baths \u2026 Together with a Description of the Apparatus Erected in Panton Square, Hay-Market","author":"Bartolomeo Dominicetti, an Italian doctor of Venetian origin who established himself in Chelsea, London, with a clinic for vapour bath treatment. It was said that he had over 16,000 patients under treatment, including the Duke of York. Dominicetti had spent some \u00a337,000 in his clinic but he entered in bankruptcy later in 1782. He was the father of Rhodomonte Dominicetti (1748\/9\u20131809) who continued his father's activity and wrote a dissertation on vapour baths","year":"1782","edition":"2"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C38","unstructured":"In page 239 of Sanches' Diary, concerning 19 September 1777, we read: \u2018Pills for the palsy of the boy in London recommended by Mr. Magellan 7 of 8\n                      bre\n                      .\u2019 The recipe follows in latin: \u2018\u211e Asafoetid.guaiac. an. \u0417i\u03b2 Zingib. cond. \u0417iii\u03b2 extract jalapp \u0417ii cathartic \u0417i sal vol. succin. \u0417\u03b2 Elyxir pp. f. pilul. @ \u2026 i ii iii cucutra ex tinct. canth., frict. ad dorsum alternatim\u2019"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C39","volume-title":"Exercitatio therapeutica, exhibens observationes quasdam de usu aquae frigidae externo, etc","year":"1778"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C40","volume-title":"The theory and uses of Baths, being an extract from the essay on waters \u2026 with marginal notes by Dr. Achmet. Illustrated by \u2026 cases","year":"1772"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C41","volume-title":"A radical and expeditious cure for a recent catarrhous cough: preceded by some observations on respiration \u2026 To which is added, a chapter on the vis vitae, so far as it is concerned in preserving and reinstating the health of an animal. Accompanied with some strictures on the treatment of compound fractures. \u2026\u2019","author":"John Mudge who wrote \u2018","year":"1778"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C42","unstructured":"\u2018Je me fache que les Anglois & les Fran\u00e7ois se disputent le quel desdeux a donn\u00e9 la grande verole \u00e0 l'isle d'otahitie. Ce prejug\u00e9 merite d'etre censur\u00e9. La verole, la grande & la petite, est si ancienne que [to]ute la generation animale. La propret\u00e9 est le preservatif de la premiere. Les Turcs n'en savent presque pas, & les Otaheitiens [inhabitants of Tahiti] s'en mocquent, sachant que les bains les en gueriront bient\u00f4t. les chretiens sont cochons par modestie & par principes de religion. Toute pourriture se communique. Il n'est pas necessaire de la faire venir de l'Amerique & de l'Arabie. J'ai gueri la verole une infinit\u00e9 de fois par l'abstinence, les bains, & la boisson aqueuse & copieuse, sans mercure l'effet du \u0394 est de gater toute nourriture pour un certain tems, pendant le quel la boisson aqueuse peut laver la Lymphe: & j'ai observ\u00e9 mille fois, que le \u0394 ne guerit pas la verole, si le malade n'amaigrisse point\u2019"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C43","unstructured":"Traveller, naturalist and writer, born in Danzig, accompanied his father, Joahnn Reinhold Forster on Captain Cook's second voyage around the world from 1772 to 1775"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C44","volume-title":"Examen historique sur l'apparition de la maladie v\u00e9n\u00e9rienne en Europe, et sur la nature de cette \u00e9pid\u00e9mie","author":"Sanches had written a small book on this subject","year":"1774"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C45","unstructured":"Scottish physician and chemist who was a friend of Magellan and one of his testamentary executors"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C46","unstructured":"This list of books that Magellan sent to Sanches is not comprehensive:"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C47","unstructured":"Magellan tells Sanches in 1776 that he had read this journal several times but did not find it of any scientific interest. He will ask Sequeira about its value but he thinks it is, as many others, just a \u2018catch penny\u2019 of booksellers"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C48","unstructured":"Magellan refers certainly to the\n                      London Medical Journal\n                      whose editor was Samuel Simmons (1750\u20131813) and of which he gives good references to Sanches and du Presle. He also speaks very favourably of Simmons"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C49","unstructured":"English physician who studied at the University of Edinburgh and lived and worked in Nottingham"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C50","unstructured":"English physician who studied at Edinburgh, was elected FRS in 1763 and had side interests in botany and conchology"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C51","unstructured":"Italian man of science with interest in chemistry, agriculture and published work on quinine. The referred passage of the letter notes: \u2018\u00e0 present je m'attends \u00e0 recevoir demain la triste nouvelle de mon bon ami le Dr. Fothergill, qui se trouve aujourd'hui (21 Dec\n                      bre\n                      .) sans la moindre esperance. Ce fut un retour de sa maladie derni\u00e8re (il y a environ un an) d'un espasm dans l'sphinter de l'uretre, accompagn\u00e9 de la fievre & d'autres complications. homme tr\u00e8s rare, & le plus adorable caracter par son humanit\u00e9, philanthropie, amour du bien public, des sciences & du genre humain \u2026 ! helas \u2026 !\u2019"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C52","first-page":"166","volume-title":"Journal of Medical Biography","volume":"6","author":"Exeter physician. Magellan recognizes his competence and capacity but says that his principles are not good and he will sacrifice the truth to his own interest and will apply his talent to make white what is really black","year":"1998"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C53","unstructured":"Alias Abraham Gomes Ergas, a physician, of Jewish Portuguese origin, established in England"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C54","unstructured":"Kensington"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C55","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1515\/9781400827817"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C56","unstructured":"Illegible"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C57","unstructured":"Illegible"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C58","unstructured":"According to the\n                      Pharmacopoeia Edinburgensis\n                      these pills contained live mercury mixed with honey"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C59","unstructured":"The mercurial ointment was also made from finely divided metallic mercury mixed with grease"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C60","unstructured":"It could be the antisyphilitic liquor of Chaussier, analogous to the Liquor of van Swieten, but based on mercury cyanide instead of chloride"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C61","unstructured":"\u2018Je soufre de nouveau un second ataque de ma maladie avec des douleurs de tete, ceux des yeux n'ont pas encore paru; mais une longue poste comm'aujourd'hui, me fatigue beaucoup, & m'engourdit la vue, en sorte qu'a peine je vois ce que j'ecris. Ainsi je suis oblig\u00e9 de finir \u00e0 la hate\u2019"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C62","unstructured":"Rufus pills \u2013\n                      pills based on aloe, myrrh, saffron and syrup of absinth"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C63","unstructured":"Mercurous chloride. Mercury compounds showed an apparent success against syphilis"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C64","unstructured":"Tincture of opium, used as pain reliever"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C65","unstructured":"Infusion of cinnabar of antimony (mercuric sulphide) in wine, used in cutaneous infections and blood problems"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C66","unstructured":"Charles Combe (1743\u20131817) apothecary and physician by Glasgow, member of the Royal College of Physicians of London, had a taste for classical matters, was a friend of Magellan and was one of his testamentary executers"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C67","unstructured":"Hip-bath"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C68","unstructured":"William Pitcairn (1711\u201391), studied in Leiden with Boehaave and graduated as physician in Oxford"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C69","unstructured":"Henry Manning, physician known for his works of 1771 and 1772 about women's diseases, but who wrote later\n                      Modern Improvements in the Practice of Physic\n                      , London (1780), which is probably the book to which Magellan refers"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C70","unstructured":"Hemicrania\n                      (probably\n                      hemicrania\n                      or nowadays\n                      migraine)\n                      \u2013 In its form chronic paroxystical hemicrania, it causes strong headaches, often associated with pains in the eyes and high blood pressure"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C71","unstructured":"Professor at the University of Louvain where he equipped the physics laboratory with the help of Magellan, among others"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C72","unstructured":"\u2018les douleurs de mes yeux & douleurs de tete sont evanouies depuis quelques mois, & je commence \u00e0 travailler dans mes objets philosophiques\u2019"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C73","unstructured":"Dutch physician, naturalist, physicist member of the Paris Academy of Sciences, published a treatise on electricity, made built an electrostatic machine of great dimensions that can be seen at the Teyler Museum in Harlem"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C74","unstructured":"\u2018& ma derniere maladie des yeux & douleurs de tete pendant plus de 4 ans m'ont fort enerv\u00e9 & sap\u00e9 La Constitution\u2019"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-08-25C75","unstructured":"Rod Home, in\n                      Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: in Association with the British Academy: from the Earliest Times to the Year 2000\n                      , Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000"}],"container-title":["Journal of Medical Biography"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/pdf\/10.1258\/jmb.2008.008025","content-type":"application\/pdf","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/full-xml\/10.1258\/jmb.2008.008025","content-type":"application\/xml","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/pdf\/10.1258\/jmb.2008.008025","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,29]],"date-time":"2026-04-29T23:23:19Z","timestamp":1777504999000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/10.1258\/jmb.2008.008025"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2009,2]]},"references-count":75,"journal-issue":{"issue":"1","published-print":{"date-parts":[[2009,2]]}},"alternative-id":["10.1258\/jmb.2008.008025"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1258\/jmb.2008.008025","relation":{},"ISSN":["0967-7720","1758-1087"],"issn-type":[{"value":"0967-7720","type":"print"},{"value":"1758-1087","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2009,2]]}}}