24 Facts About James Jurin

James Jurin was an English scientist and physician, particularly remembered for his early work in capillary action and in the epidemiology of smallpox vaccination.

James Jurin was a staunch proponent of the work of Sir Isaac Newton and often used his gift for satire in Newton's defence.

James Jurin was educated at Christ's Hospital where he won a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating BA in 1705, and being elected fellow the following year.

James Jurin became a frequent public speaker on mathematics and the work of Sir Isaac Newton.

James Jurin returned to Cambridge in 1715 to study medicine, becoming MD the following year and establishing a successful practice in London and Tunbridge Wells.

In 1724, James Jurin married Mary Douglas, nee Harris, wealthy widow of Oley Douglas, and they had five daughters and one son.

James Jurin rose to a position of some eminence in medicine and science.

James Jurin is described as "witty, satirical, ambitious, and professionally and financially successful".

James Jurin was a powerful advocate of the smallpox variolation, a procedure involving scratching pus or material from the scabs of smallpox sores into the veins of a non-immune person to create a mild case of the disease that would confer lifelong immunity.

James Jurin used an early statistical study to compare the risks of variolation with those from contracting the disease naturally.

James Jurin studied mortality statistics for London for the fourteen years prior to 1723 and concluded that one fourteenth of the population had died from smallpox, up to 40 percent during epidemics.

James Jurin advertised in the Proceedings of the Royal Society for readers to report their personal and professional experiences and received over sixty replies, most from other physicians or surgeons, but most significantly from Thomas Nettleton who reported his own calculations from his experience in several communities in Yorkshire.

James Jurin's analysis concluded that the probability of death from variolation was roughly 1 in 50, while the probability of death from naturally contracted smallpox was 1 in 7 or 8.

James Jurin published his results in a series of annual pamphlets, An Account of the Success of Inoculating the Small-Pox.

James Jurin's work was very influential in establishing smallpox variolation in England some seventy years before Edward Jenner introduced the more effective method of "vaccination" using cowpox material in place of human smallpox.

James Jurin had studied under Roger Cotes and William Whiston at Cambridge but only came to know Newton at the Royal Society, where Jurin was Secretary towards the end of Newton's Presidency.

James Jurin took an active part in defending Newton and attacking Gottfried Leibniz in the debate over vis viva, opposing the views of Benjamin Robins and Pietro Antonio Michelotti.

James Jurin fostered international observational research into weather and meteorology, and studied the phenomenon of capillary action, deriving the rule that the height of liquid in a capillary tube is inversely proportional to the diameter of the tube at the surface of the liquid only, a law sometimes known as James Jurin's law.

James Jurin published on hydrodynamics and was critical of Jean and Daniel Bernoulli's work.

Between 1734 and 1742, James Jurin published over three hundred pages in robust rebuttal of Berkeley, many of them employing his favourite weapon of satire.

Berkeley quickly withdrew from the debate and James Jurin turned his attentions on Robins and Henry Pemberton.

The controversy was re-ignited years later when James Jurin wrote negatively in response to Berkeley's promotion of tar-water.

James Jurin attended Robert Walpole as his physician and prescribed lixivium lithontripticum for Walpole's bladder stones.

James Jurin had used a similar prescription for himself but Walpole died and James Jurin was blamed for his death, again necessitating an energetic pamphlet campaign to defend his practice.