Isaac Lawson (died 1747), was a Scottish physician. He became a student of
Leyden University
Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange, as a reward to the city of Le ...
on 17 May 1730. There he studied medicine and botany under
Herman Boerhaave
Herman Boerhaave (, 31 December 1668 – 23 September 1738Underwood, E. Ashworth. "Boerhaave After Three Hundred Years." ''The British Medical Journal'' 4, no. 5634 (1968): 820–25. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20395297.) was a Dutch botanist, ...
and
Adriaan van Royen, and became the intimate friend of
Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...
, whom he several times assisted with gifts of money. In conjunction with
Jan Frederik Gronovius
Jan Frederik Gronovius (also seen as Johann Frederik and Johannes Fredericus) (10 February 1690 in Leiden – 10 July 1762 in Leiden) was a Dutch botanist notable as a patron of Linnaeus.
John Clayton, a plant collector in Virginia sent him many ...
he was at the expense of the printing of the ''
Systema Naturæ'' of Linnaeus in 1735. Lawson obtained his doctorate in medicine on December 28, 1737 in
Leiden
Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration wi ...
with a thesis on
zinc oxide
Zinc oxide is an inorganic compound with the formula . It is a white powder that is insoluble in water. ZnO is used as an additive in numerous materials and products including cosmetics, food supplements, rubbers, plastics, ceramics, glass, cement ...
, his thesis being entitled ''Dissertatio Academica sistens Nihil.''
From spring to autumn 1738 he undertook an extensive trip to the most famous German
mines, during which he made extensive
mineral
In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid chemical compound with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed. (2 ...
s for his private mineral collection. Via Hanover he first arrived in Goslar. From there he went on excursions to Zellerfeld and Clausthal. Three weeks later he traveled on to Sankt Andreasberg. He sent samples of his collected minerals to Hieronymus David Gaubius, Johann Andreas Cramer and Gronovius. His further path led him via Berlin and Halle (Saale), Halle to Leipzig, where he met Johann Ernst Hebenstreit and Christian Gottlieb Ludwig. In Freiberg he met Johann Friedrich Henckel every day. When he arrived in Karlsbad (Baden), Karlsbad, he realized that his plans to travel to Prague, Vienna and Hungary were no longer realistic, and he returned to England via Flanders and Holland.
He afterwards became a physician to the British army and took part in the War of the Austrian Succession, Austrian Wars of Succession. His death is possibly due to wounds inflicted at the Battle of Lauffeldt on 2 July 1747. He died at Oosterhout in the Netherlands in the same year.
Legacy
Linnaeus dedicated to him the Lawsonia inermis, genus ''Lawsonia'',
[Carl von Linné: ''Genera Plantarum''. Leiden 1742, p. 160] the henna of the East. Lawson is mentioned in Dr. Maton's edition of Linnaeus's ''Diary,'' and included in his reprint of Richard Pulteney's ''View of the Writings of Linnaeus.''
Another Isaac Lawson, possibly a son, entered Leyden University 13 March 1747, and is described in the register as Britanno-Edinburgensis.
References
;Attribution
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lawson, Isaac
1747 deaths
18th-century Scottish medical doctors
British Army personnel of the War of the Austrian Succession
Scottish mineralogists
Leiden University alumni