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For most of his adult life Boswell was better known for his "Account of Corsica", which lead to the sobriquet Corsica Boswell, than for his friendship with Dr. Johnson.

Biographies

James Boswell mentioned thousands of people in his extensive journals and other writings. Read about an ever increasing number of those people, and about their relationship with Boswell, in our biographies section.

Literature

In our literature section you can read about the numerous books published by Boswell in his own lifetime, and about more than 40 other books about or related to Boswell published since his death in 1795.

Jerome David Gaubius

Born 1705
Died Nov 29, 1780

Alias:

Hieronymus David Gaubius

Biography:

A student of Boerhaave's1 and his succesor as Professor of Medicine and Chemistry at Leyden. Gaubius was much respected in his time, and his Libellus de Methodo Concinnandi Formulas Medicamentorum (1739) was translated into English as early as 1741. One of his best known works was Institutiones Pathologiae medicinalis (1758), a textbook on systematic pathology which remained popular for many years.

Life with Boswell:

Boswell visited Gaubius in Leyden on May 5, 1764. In the autumn of 1763 Boswell had left a chemical preparation of his uncle's with Gaubius, without actually meeting the doctor. On May 4 or 5 he wrote a letter to Gaubius in latin, asking to meet him, which he did.

Notes:

Note 1: Herman Boerhaave (1668-1738) was a Dutch botanist, humanist and physician of European fame. He is regarded as the founder of clinical teaching and of the modern academic hospital. His main achievement was to demonstrate the relation of symptoms to lesions. (Source: Wikipedia)

Literature

Gaubius' Chemiam artibus academicis jure esse inserendam is available for free at Project Gutenberg. In 1978 was published his correspondence with Antonio Nunes Ribeiro Sanches and others, entitled Hieronymus David Gaubius (1705-1780): Zijn correspondentie met Antonio Nunes Ribeiro Sanches en andere tijdgenoten. He published some other writing which are sometimes availbale via the AbeBooks used books search engine.