James Johnson (surgeon)

James Johnson (also Johnston; February 1777 – 10 October 1845)[1] was an influential British writer on diseases of tropical climates in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Johnson was born at Ballinderry, County Londonderry, Ireland, in February 1777, in a Scots-Irish family, at a small farm on which his father lived.

He lost his parents early, received a scanty education at the parish school, and at the age of 15 was apprenticed to a surgeon-apothecary at Portglenone, County Antrim.

Here he stayed two years; he passed two more at Belfast, and then moved to London, where he arrived without money or friends, to finish his medical education.

[3] Johnson was appointed surgeon's mate in the navy, and sailed to Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, visiting the naval hospitals whenever his ship was in harbour.

In January 1800 he passed his second examination, and in February he was made full surgeon and was appointed to the sloop-of-war HMS Cynthia.

[3] At the Peace of Amiens of 1802, Johnson was again out of work for a time; but in the following year (May) sailed for the East, and did not return to England till January 1806.

[3] At the peace of 1814, Johnson served in HMS Impregnable, when the Duke of Clarence conveyed the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia to the United Kingdom.

[3] In January 1836 Sir John Forbes began the publication of his British and Foreign Medical Review, which diminished to some extent the circulation of Johnson's periodical.