James Jurin and the avoidance of bias in collecting and assessing evidence on the effects of variolation

摘要

James Jurin (1684-1750) was an 18th-century phys- ician and polymath.! As a scholar at Trinity College, Cambridge, he became acquainted with the work of Sir Isaac Newton, of which he became an enthusiastic advocate. After leaving Cambridge, he travelled with Mordecai Carey, later Bishop of Killala and Achonry (in Ireland), to continental Europe. They attended the lectures of Hermann Boerhaave at Leiden, then Europe’s leading medical school. Jurin later returned to Cambridge to study medicine. Thereafter, he prac- tised medicine while continuing to develop his interest in science and mathematics, corresponding with many of Europe’s leading scientists (Voltaire referred to ‘the famous Jurin’ in the Journal des Scavans, cf. http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k56605t/f603).