Name Jodocus Crull Died 1713 | Role Writer Education King's College, Cambridge | |
Jodocus Crull, M.D., FRS (1660–1713) was a late 17th-century and early 18th-century "miscellaneous writer" on historical subjects, with political and sociological insights. Though his life remains somewhat of a mystery, his works are still consulted by academic and popular history writers today.
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Early Life and Education
Crull was born in Hamburg, then a free state of the Germanic Confederation, of a family part of that city's patriciate. He applied himself to medicine at Holland's Leiden University. The M.D. was attained in 1679 with Crull's inaugural essay: Disputatio medice-chymica exhibens medicamenti veterum universalis, recentiorumque paticularium verum in medicina usum, etc.
Life in England
Subsequently Crull settled in England although he may have been a public school student there before he matriculated at Leiden. He was created M.D. of Cambridge by royal mandate on 7 August 1681; elected a fellow of the Royal Society on 23 November 1681 and admitted on 30 November; and later admitted a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians on 22 December 1692.
Crull's life remains rather ambiguous for some accounts speculate that he subsisted mainly by doing translations and compilations for booksellers while seeming to have met with little success in his profession since there are a number of omissions of his name on the annual list of the Fellows of the Royal Society which, according to the author (Gordon Goodwin) of the Crull entry in the 1917 D.N.B., suggest an inability to pay. Other accounts imply the likelihood that Crull may have been a dilettante and eccentric who had the means to follow his interests and who may not have paid his fees to the Royal Society with regularity since he may not have attached a great significance to being listed yearly. Where he practised medicine could have been in London or its environs for he settled in London but resided outside of the city because of "country" being appended to his name on the lists.
The fact that Crull could entreat Sir Hans Sloane's vote at the coming election of a navy physician or interact with Sir Isaac Newton and other luminaries of his age shows that he was comfortable with himself; and that the latter view of him runs counter to Goodwin's portrayal of him in the D.N.B., an entry which also neglects to mention that Crull received the M.D. from King's College in the University of Cambridge in 1681.
Works
Crull's works were published either anonymously or with his initials only. His principal translations are:
Other writings include: