John Armstrong

John Armstrong (1709–1779) was a Scottish physician and poet trained in medicine at Edinburgh. He practised in London, served as physician to the army, and was a friend of James Thomson, whose The Castle of Indolence includes a stanza by him.

His best-known poem is The Art of Preserving Health (1744), a four-book work in blank verse on air, diet, exercise and the passions, praised in its day for bringing didactic verse to a medical subject. He also published essays and later poems.