Jacob de Castro Sarmento
| Jacob de Castro Sarmento | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born | 1692 Bragança, Kingdom of Portugal |
| Died |
14 September 1762 (aged 70) London, United Kingdom |
| Nationality | Portuguese |
| Occupation | Physician, naturalist, poet |
Jacob Henriques de Castro Sarmento (1692 in Bragança, Portugal – 14 September 1762 in London) was a Portuguese estrangeirado, physician, naturalist, poet and Deist.
At the age of seventeen he entered the University of Évora to study philosophy, and later studied medicine at Coimbra, receiving his baccalaureate in 1717. In order to escape the persecutions of the Portuguese Inquisition, Henrique — so-called as a Marrano — went into voluntary exile in London in 1720. There he continued his studies in medicine, physics, and chemistry, and passed his examinations in the theory and practice of medicine. He became a member of the Royal College of Physicians and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1730, in recognition of his having introduced a new medicine for curing fevers.
In 1731 he elaborated a plan for a botanical garden in Coimbra. Castro Sarmento corresponded with many scholars, among others with Prof. João Mendes Sachetti Barbosa of Lisbon, who reported to him the terrible earthquake that destroyed the capital of Portugal in 1755, and with the Jesuit B. Soares, who communicated to him his astronomical observations made in the Portuguese colony of Brazil. He was a strong proponent of Newtonianism and made efforts to integrate it with Jewish theology. He published Theorica verdadeira das marés, conforme à philosophia do incomparavel cavalhero Isaac Newton (Treatise on the true theory of tides, according to the philosophy of the incomparable gentleman Isaac Newton), the first book in Portuguese to advocate Newton ideas (London, 1737).
The literary activity of Castro Sarmento began with a treatise on vaccination, Dissertatio in Novam, Tutam, ac Utilem Methodum Inoculationis seu Transplantationis Variolorum (London, 1721; German translation, Hamburg, 1722; Supplement, London, 1731; anonymously, Leyden). Other works are: Historia Medica Physico-Hist.-Mechanica, part i, London, 1731; part ii, London 1735; Syderohydrologia ó Discurso das Aguas Mineraes Espadañas ou Chalibeadas, London, 1736, identical with Da Uso, e Abuso das Minhas Agoas da Inglaterra, London, 1756; and a Portuguese translation of the treatise of the surgeon Samuel Sharp: Surgical Operations, with Plates and Descriptions of the Instruments Used (London, 1744).
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