John Freind

John Freind (1675 – 26 July 1728), English physician, younger brother of Robert Freind (1667-1751), headmaster of Westminster School, was born at Croton in Northamptonshire.

He made great progress in classical knowledge under Richard Busby at Westminster, and at Christ Church, Oxford, under Dean Aldrich, and while still very young, produced, along with Peter Foulkes, an excellent edition of the speeches of Aeschines and Demosthenes on the affair of Ctesiphon (orator).

After this he began the study of medicine, and having proved his scientific attainments by various treatises was appointed a lecturer on chemistry at Oxford in 1704. In the following year he accompanied the English army, under the earl of Peterborough, into Spain, and on returning home in 1707, wrote an account of the expedition, which attained great popularity.

Two years later he published his Prelectiones chimicae, which he dedicated to Sir Isaac Newton. Shortly after his return in 1713 from Flanders, whither he had accompanied the British troops, he took up his residence in London, where he soon obtained a great reputation as a physician.

In 1716 he became fellow of the college of physicians, of which he was chosen one of the censors in 1718, and Harveian orator in 1720. In 1722 he entered the House of Commons as Member of Parliament (MP) for Launceston in Cornwall, but, being suspected of favouring the cause of the exiled Stuarts, he spent half of that year in the Tower.

During his imprisonment he conceived the plan of his most important work, The History of Physic, of which the first part appeared in 1725, and the second in the following year. In the latter year he was appointed physician to Queen Caroline, an office which he held till his death.

A complete edition of his Latin works, with a Latin translation of the History of Physic, edited by Dr John Wigan, was published in London in 1732.