Letter 3243

John Thomas Woolhouse to Hans Sloane – December 26, 1725


Item info

Date: December 26, 1725
Author: John Thomas Woolhouse
Recipient: Hans Sloane

Library: British Library, London
Manuscript: Sloane MS 4048
Folio: ff. 116-117



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Transcription

The English Ambassador delivered the books Sloane sent to the Bibliotheque du Roi four days ago. Abbé Bignon was very thankful. He wants a particular translation of Pliny’s Natural History if Sloane can get it. Bignon recommended Sloane’s Natural History of Jamaica to some ‘Journalistes’ so they can publish an extract to promote it. He recommended Dr Woodward as an associate of the Academie des sciences. Woolhouse hopes Woodward finds more candidates to compete for the surgical position that opened up. Abbé Tarquier was proposed as a translator for Sloane’s Natural History of Jamaica, which can be printed by Dr Nogaise in Holland. A copy of Sloane’s book went to the Sorbonne. John Thomas Woolhouse was an English oculist and physician. He practiced physic in London, served James II for a time, and in 1711 secured a position at Paris’s Hospice des Quinze-Vingts. He served as the King of France’s oculist, was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1721, and a member of both the Berlin Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Sciences of Bologna. Woolhouse was criticized for charlatanry by some contemporaries (Anita McConnell, Woolhouse, John Thomas (16661734), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/29954, accessed 17 July 2013]).




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