John Spurgin

John Spurgin (1796–1866) was an English physician. He is known as a medical writer, inventor, and follower of the works of Emanuel Swedenborg.

Life The son of William Spurgin, a farmer, he was born at Orplands, Bradwell-on-Sea, Essex. His father was a landowner and lord of the manor at nearby Brightlingsea.

Spurgin was educated at Chelmsford grammar school from 1804. Spurgin early studied the works of Emanuel Swedenborg, whose ideas he gradually adopted.

On 3 July 1814, Spurgin was admitted to Caius College, Cambridge. They were acquainted by this time; Keats had then, in late 1815, just begun medical studies at Guy's Hospital, and he and Spurgin had briefly both been dressers together at Guy's.

Spurgin was a scholar from Michaelmas 1815 when he matriculated at Caius College, to Michaelmas 1816. He went to Edinburgh University, and, returning to Cambridge, graduated M.B. 1820, and M.D. 1825. He was admitted an inceptor candidate of the Royal College of Physicians of London on 30 September 1822, a candidate 30 September 1825, and a fellow on 30 September 1826. He was censor in 1829, and conciliarius in 1851–3 and 1862–4. He delivered the Harveian oration in 1851 and the college lectures on materia medica in 1852. Spurgin was physician to the Foundling Hospital from 1835 to his death, and around 1837 became physician to St Mark's Hospital. This was at Beer Alston, deep under the River Tamar, with an engine that operated to 1860; a model of the mine was shown at the Great Exhibition 1851.

Works Spurgin gave a personal account in a lecture read before the Swedenborg Association on 24 February 1847, and published in the same year as A Narrative of Personal Experience concerning Principles advocated by the Swedenborg Association. He also planned an edition of Swedenborg's philosophical works in translation. The only volume published was The Introduction to an Anatomical, Physical, and Philosophical Investigation of the Economy of the Animal Kingdom, with an address to the reader by "Medicus Cantabrigiensis", 1861. His eldest son, John Blick Spurgin (1821–1903), an army officer, was her son. He married in 1835 Rose Down (1809/10–1882) of Colney Hatch, who died on 30 November 1882. They had a family of at least six children.