ABSTRACT
John Huxham received a classical education from the grammar school of Isaac Gilling, one of his guardian’s fellow dissenting Presbyterian ministers, in the town of Newton Abbot. Despite a lack of application to his studies, it was evident that Huxham had a prodigious memory, and proved to be a very able student. Due to limitations on the rights of religious dissenters put into place after the restoration of the English monarchy, the universities of Oxford and Cambridge were closed to Huxham. In his spare time, Huxham would fill his hours with study of the medical classics, and was notably a great admirer of Hippocrates. In the prevention of smallpox, Huxham was an early advocate for inoculation, considering the disease in its natural form to be far more dangerous. Huxham measured wind speed and direction, barometric pressure, temperature and volume of rainfall.
