author
John Armstrong
1709–1779
A Scottish doctor who turned medical knowledge into lively verse, he is best remembered for blending science, satire, and poetry in a way that felt fresh for the 18th century. His work often shows how closely health, manners, and everyday life were linked in his mind.
2 Audiobooks
Essays on Taste
by John Gilbert Cooper, John Armstrong
The art of preserving health: A poem
by John Armstrong
About the author
Born in Roxburghshire, Scotland, around 1709, John Armstrong trained as a physician at the University of Edinburgh and earned his MD in 1732. He later settled in London, where he moved in literary circles while continuing his medical career.
Armstrong became known as both a writer and a doctor, with a reputation resting especially on The Art of Preserving Health (1744), a long poem that turns practical advice about healthy living into polished blank verse. He also wrote satirical and literary works, and his career reflects an unusual mix of professional medicine and 18th-century letters.
He died in 1779. Today he is remembered less as a practicing physician than as a distinctive figure who brought medicine into poetry and gave familiar subjects like diet, exercise, and daily habits an unexpectedly literary form.