Jan Fryderyk or Johann Friedrich Bachstrom (24 December 1688, near

Rawitsch Rawicz (; ) is a town in west-central Poland with 21,398 inhabitants as of 2004. It is situated in the Greater Poland Voivodeship (since 1999); previously it was in Leszno Voivodeship (1975–1998). It is the capital of Rawicz County. History Th ...

, now Rawicz,

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

- June 1742, Nieswiez, now Nyasvizh,

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

) was a writer, scientist and

Lutheran Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism that emerged under the work of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German friar and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church launched ...

theologian Theology is the study of religious belief from a religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of ...

who spent the last decade of his life in

Leiden Leiden ( ; ; in English language, English and Archaism, archaic Dutch language, Dutch also Leyden) is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Provinces of the Nethe ...

. 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 he was in the Netherlands, he is often mistakenly described as a Dutch physician and writer.

Early life

Bachstrom was born in 1688 the son of a barber near

Rawicz Rawicz (; ) is a town in west-central Poland with 21,398 inhabitants as of 2004. It is situated in the Greater Poland Voivodeship (since 1999); previously it was in Leszno Voivodeship (1975–1998). It is the capital of Rawicz County. History The ...

,Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie
(in German),

(in German)

. By 1708 he studied theology in Halle and since March 1710 in

Jena Jena (; ) is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city in Germany and the second largest city in Thuringia. Together with the nearby cities of Erfurt and Weimar, it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 500,000 in ...

in Germany. He moved to Stroppen in Silesia to become a preacher, but was refused based on doubts about his orthodoxy. In 1717 he became a professor at the gymnasium of

Toruń Toruń is a city on the Vistula River in north-central Poland and a World Heritage Sites of Poland, UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its population was 196,935 as of December 2021. Previously, it was the capital of the Toruń Voivodeship (1975–199 ...

. He was expelled from this city after a heterodox sermon had resulted in much disorder. He moved to Wengrow, then a centre for

Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...

movements in Poland, where he combined the offices of physician and pastor. By 1729 he, somehow, was in

Constantinople Constantinople (#Names of Constantinople, see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman Empire, Roman, Byzantine Empire, Byzantine, Latin Empire, Latin, and Ottoman Empire, Ottoman empire ...

where he established a printing shop and undertook to translate the Bible into Turkish. This led to much consternation and he was once more compelled to flee a city.Hugh James Ros
Bachstrom, John Frederic
in ''A New General Biographical Dictionary'', London, 1857.

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 Scurvy is a deficiency disease (state of malnutrition) resulting from a lack of vitamin C (ascorbic acid). Early symptoms of deficiency include weakness, fatigue, and sore arms and legs. Without treatment, anemia, decreased red blood cells, gum d ...

. 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 James Lind (4 October 1716 – 13 July 1794) was a Scottish physician. He was a pioneer of naval hygiene in the Royal Navy. By conducting one of the first ever clinical trials, he developed the theory that citrus fruits cured scurvy. 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."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, Bachstrom's book probably was dismissed in its time as it did not fit in the then prevailing

holistic Holism is the interdisciplinary idea that systems possess properties as wholes apart from the properties of their component parts. Julian Tudor Hart (2010''The Political Economy of Health Care''pp.106, 258 The aphorism "The whole is greater than t ...

views in medicine, which sought to explain all diseases by a single theory and to cure them by a universal cure.

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 Charles Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (18 January 168910 February 1755), generally referred to as simply Montesquieu, was a French judge, man of letters, historian, and political philosopher. He is the principal so ...

's Lettres persanes and

Defoe Defoe may refer to: People *Defoe (surname), most notably English author Daniel Defoe Places *Defoe, Webster County, West Virginia, an unincorporated community Other uses *Defoe (comics), a zombie story *Defoe Shipbuilding Company, a former shipy ...

Robinson Crusoe ''Robinson Crusoe'' ( ) is an English adventure novel by Daniel Defoe, first published on 25 April 1719. Written with a combination of Epistolary novel, epistolary, Confessional writing, confessional, and Didacticism, didactic forms, the ...

.An article mentioning the loss of his Inqviraner book from the literature (first paragraph)
(in German) At the urging of

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

s, presumably for his liberal opinions on religion, he was imprisoned and killed (by strangulation) in Nieswiez in Poland–Lithuania (now

) in 1742.

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).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bachstrom, Johann 1688 births 1742 deaths 17th-century Dutch physicians 17th-century Polish physicians 18th-century Dutch physicians 18th-century Polish–Lithuanian novelists 18th-century Polish–Lithuanian physicians Dutch Protestant theologians Polish Lutheran theologians 18th-century Dutch writers Scientists from Leiden Writers from Leiden Dutch people of Polish descent University of Halle alumni Polish people of German descent Polish Lutheran clergy 18th-century Lutheran theologians Polish male novelists 18th-century male writers 17th-century male writers