author
John Armstrong
1709–1779
A Scottish doctor who turned medicine into poetry, he is best remembered for The Art of Preserving Health, a lively 18th-century poem on well-being. His work mixes wit, learning, and the everyday concerns of health in a way that still feels surprisingly modern.
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 Scotland around 1709, John Armstrong studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and later built his career in London. He was both a practicing physician and a man of letters, moving in literary circles while writing poetry, satire, and essays.
His best-known work is The Art of Preserving Health (1744), a didactic poem that made an unusual subject—healthy living—engaging for readers of his time. He also wrote other poems and prose pieces, bringing together medical knowledge, observation, and a sharp, sometimes playful style.
Armstrong died in 1779. He is remembered less as a single-book curiosity than as a distinctive 18th-century voice who joined science and literature in an especially readable way.