Lockean Philosophy and Newtonian Medicine in the Intellectual Career of the Apothecary John Quincy, 1712–1722

This article examines the intersection of John Locke’s philosophy and Newtonian mechanical medicine in the writings of the early eighteenth-century apothecary John Quincy. For though Locke’s own medical interests have often been explored, the influence of his Essay concerning Human Understanding(1689) upon the new physiological theories of the early eighteenth century has received comparatively little attention. Quincy’s 1712 translation of Santorio Santori’s Medicina Statica(1614) with his extended “Introduction” and explanatory notes provides a striking and previously overlooked example of an influential medical author systematically reworking Locke’s epistemology to defend new mechanical theories of physiology. Quincy assimilated to Newtonian medicine Locke’s critique of the misuse of words, his rejection of Scholastic substantial forms, and a modified version of his overall theory of knowledge. His later polemical writings, his Pharmacopoia Officinalis (1718), and his Lexicon Physico-Medicum (1719) continued to deploy Lockean principles to undermine alternative physiological theories and to propose a reform of medical terminology. Quincy’s writings thus reveal how Locke’s project of clearing away the rubbish obscuring the path to truth was already shaping an important domain of knowledge in the early eighteenth century.