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DR. JOHAN HESSELIUS. 679
NOTE 76.
DR. JOHAN HESSELIUS.
Dr. Johan Hesselius, who is mentioned in Document 76, was born
in 1687, and was the son of Anders Hesselius, Rector of Folkärna in
Dalecarlia, and of Maria Bergia, sister of the second wife of Bishop
Swedberg. He passed his examination at Upsal in 1714, and in
the year following was appointed provincial physician of West Gothland,
where for many years he lived at the house of his uncle Bishop
Swedberg. While staying with the Bishop, we read, that " every evening
usually, his good friend Dr. J. Hesselius played hymns for him on
his violoncello ” (see Document 10, p. 114). In 1721, he went abroad
in the company of his cousin, Emanuel Swedenborg, and obtained his
diploma as doctor of medicine at Harderwyk in Holland. He after
wards spent some time at Leyden where he heard Boerhave, Grave
sand, and Albinus, and then travelled with Swedenborg through
Germany and Austria. In the " Miscellaneous Observations” which
Swedenborg published in Leipzig during this journey, he describes
(English edition, p. 10) some petrified plants which he found near
Liège, and expresses himself concerning his travelling companion
thus: " The vegetable specimens to which I have alluded were collected
by myself and my travelling companion, Dr. Johan Hesselius, physician
to the province of West Gothland, and well skilled in the botany
and fossils of Sweden.” He mentions him again at p. 26 ( English
edition). In 1728, Hesselius was appointed provincial physician of
Nerike and Wermland; in 1733, he became assessor of the College
of Medicine; and in 1743, member of the Academy of Sciences. He
died on his estate of Ahlqvittern in Wermland in 1752. The
Swedish Biographical Lexicon says of him , " Hesselius was of small
stature, but gifted with great natural talents. As a physician he
liked to employ those remedies, which were nearest at hand and
grew in the neighbourhood. His greatest delight consisted in making
new experiments and new discoveries in botany. *** Through his
brother (see Note 91) he received from America a large collection
of snakes, lizards, and other animals hitherto unknown, which he
left to the Senator, Count Carl Gyllenborg, by whom they were
given to the Museum of the University of Upsal, where they are
preserved under the name of Amphibia Gyllenborgiana. The merits
of Dr. Hesselius were acknowledged by the Swedish Diet which met
in 1747, and which made a grant of money to him.” Swedenborg
mentions the two brothers Hesselius in the Spiritual Diary,"
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