James John Garth Wilkinson

James John Garth Wilkinson (3 June 1812 – 18 October 1899), was an English homeopathic physician, social reformer, translator and editor of Swedenborg's works, and a writer on Swedenborgian topics.

Life The son of James John Wilkinson (died 1845), a writer on mercantile law and judge of the County Palatine of Durham, he was born in London. Wilkinson studied medicine and worked at Newcastle Infirmary and Guy's Hospital. He was a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons and a Licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries in 1834. but these were not his only interests. He was a traveller, a linguist, well versed in Scandinavian literature and philology, the author of mystical poems entitled Improvisations from the Spirit (1857), a social and medical reformer, a convinced opponent of vaccination and vivisection. Wilkinson was a vegetarian.

Wilkinson criticized vivisection as unethical and unnecessary cruelty inflicted on animals in his book On Human Science: Good and Evil, and on Divine Revelation, published in 1876. He was an advocate of nature conservation and women's rights.

Legacy

Henry James, Sr. became a Swedenborgian, and named a son after Wilkinson: Garth Wilkinson James, also known as Wilkie James, an officer of the 54th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry under Robert Gould Shaw.

Selected publications

Emanuel Swedenborg: A Biography (1849) The Human Body and its Connexion With Man (1851) The Homoeopathic Principle Applied to Insanity (1857) On Human Science: Good and Evil, and on Divine Revelation (1876) Vaccination Tracts (1879) Epidemic Man and His Visitations (1893) The New Jerusalem and the Old Jerusalem (1894)