Johann Bachstrom 3282482 222180007 2008-06-27T23:16:29Z Lightbot 7178666 Units/dates/other '''Jan Fryderyk''' or '''Johann Friedrich Bachstrom''', ([[24 December]], [[1688]], near [[Rawicz]] - June [[1742]], [[Nyasvizh|Niesviez]]) was a [[Silesia]]n-born writer, scientist and [[Lutheran]] [[theologian]] who spent the last decade of his life in [[Leiden]]. His surname is sometimes spelt '''Bachstroem''' or '''Bachstrohm'''. He mostly wrote in Latin, German, and French (with his given names adjusted to ''Joannis Friderici'' and ''Jean-Frédéric'' as appropriate), while in English biographies he can appear as ''John Frederic Bachstrom''. Since he is best known for his publications while in Leiden, he is most often described as a [[Dutch Republic|Dutch]] physician and writer. ==Early life== Bachstrom was born in 1688 the son of a barber in [[Silesia]], then controlled by [[Habsburg Monarchy|Austria]]. By 1708 he studied theology in [[Halle, Saxony-Anhalt|Halle]] and upon his return in Silesia sought to become a preacher, but was refused based on doubts about his orthodoxy. In 1717 he became a professor at the [[Gymnasium (school)|gymnasium]] of [[Toruń|Thorn]]. He was expelled from this city after a heterodox sermon had resulted in much disorder. He moved to [[Wengrow]], then a centre for [[Reformation]] movements in Poland, where he combined the offices of physician and pastor. By [[1729]] he, somehow, was in [[Constantinople]] where he established a printing shop and undertook to translate the Bible into [[Turkish language|Turkish]]. This led to much consternation and he was once more compelled to flee a city. <ref> Hugh James Rose ''A New General Biographical Dictionary'', London, 1857. </ref> <!-- interestingly this reference loses track of Bachstrom at this time, which is the time that he is picked up by most other sources --> ==Leiden and treatise on scurvy== He may have gone directly to Leiden, from where his studies appeared from the early 1730s. Many of his opinions appear common sense but ahead of his time. For example, he promoted that women should be allowed to become medical doctors and that sailors should be taught to swim before taking off to sea. Most famously, he urged the use of fresh fruit and vegetables to cure [[scurvy]]. In his [[1734]] book ''Observationes circa scorbutum'' ("Observations on Scurvy"), he wrote that:- :: ''"scurvy is solely owing to a total abstinence from fresh vegetable food, and greens; which is alone the primary cause of the disease."'' This publication preceded [[James Lind]]'s celebrated experiment on scurvy by 13 years and Lind's publication ''A treatise of the scurvy'' by 19 years, and he has been called "the one light of the era who, more than any other writer for centuries before or decades after, truly understood scurvy as a deficiency disease."<ref name = "Bown"> Stephen E. Bown, ''Scurvy: How a Surgeon, a Mariner, and a Gentlemen Solved the Greatest Medical Mystery of the Age of Sail'', Thomas Dunne Books, 2004, ISBN-13: 978-0312313913 </ref> Bachstrom's book probably was dismissed in its time as it did not fit in the then prevailing [[holistic]] views in medicine, which sought to explain all diseases by a single theory and to cure them by a universal cure.<ref name = "Bown"/> ==Novelist== In 1736/37 he published, anonymously, a novel describing a utopian society established by shipwrecked religious dissidents (the ''Inqviraner'') near an unnamed North-African mountain range, in which complete religious freedom existed. The novel drew from his own experiences of his time in Constantinople and on French and British novels, like [[Montesquieu]]'s [[Lettres persanes]] and [[Daniel Defoe|Defoe]]'s [[Robinson Crusoe]]. <ref name = "germanistik "> [http://www.germanistik.ch/scripts/download.php?id=Hohe_Romane_und_blaue_Bibliotheken An article starting with a lament on the loss of his Inqviraner book from the literature] (in German) </ref> At the urging of [[Jesuit]]s, presumably for his liberal opinions on religion, he was imprisoned and died (by strangulation) in Nyasvizh in [[Lithuania]] (now in [[Belarus]]) in 1742.<ref name = "Bown"/><ref name = "germanistik"/> <!-- why? how did he get there ? --> ==Books== * ''Observationes circa scorbutum : ejusque indolem, causas, signa, et curam, institutæ, eorum præprimis in usum, qui Groenlandiam & Indiam Orientis petunt.'' Leiden, Conrad Wishoff, 1734 * ''Nova aestus marini theoria'', Leiden, 1734 * ''Bey zwei hundert Jahr lang unbekannte, nunmehro aber entdeckte vortreffliche Land der Inqviraner: : Aus der Erzehlung Eines nach langwieriger Kranckheit in unsern Gegenden verstorbenen Aeltesten dieses glückseligen Landes, Nach allen seinen Sitten, Gebräuchen, Ordnungen, Gottesdienst, Wissenschafften, Künsten, Vortheilen und Einrichtung umständlich beschrieben, Und dem gemeinen Wesen zum Besten mitgetheilet.'' Breslau (probably not Frankfurt, as usually quoted), 1736/37 * ''L'Art de Nager, ou Invention à l'aide de laquelle on peut toujours se sauver du Naufrage; &, en cas de besoin, fair passer les plus larges Rivières à les Armées entières.'' Amsterdam, Zacharie Chatelain, 1741. Though called "The Art of Swimming" this book is about life-saving and mostly describes his invention of a life-jacket (made out of cork). [http://www.schulz-falster.com/fairs/fair22.pdf] ==References== <references/> {{BD|1688|1742|Bachstrom, Johann}} [[Category:Dutch physicians]] [[Category:Polish physicians]] [[Category:Dutch theologians]] [[Category:Polish theologians]] [[Category:Dutch writers]] [[Category:People from Leiden]] [[Category:People from Silesia]] [[Category:Dutch people of Polish descent]] [[Category:University of Halle alumni]]