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)
Notes
References
Sources
- Lines, Richard. "James John Garth Wilkinson 1812–1899: Author, Physician, Swedenborgian". Journal of the New Church Historical Society. Chester, 2002. (Available on-line.)
- Wilkinson, Clement John. James John Garth Wilkinson. London, 1911. (Available on-line.)