User:Norwikian
My contribution here consists mostly of writings by the physician and philosopher Sir Thomas Browne a famous figure in world literature and medicine and a seventeenth century resident of Norwich, U.K. my home City.
For 2005 the year of Browne's quattrocentennary, I've transcribed An Alphabetical Table which appendices
- A Letter to a Friend Doctor T.B's major medical essay.
Shorter pieces
- Medical Observations Essential reading for those wanting to assess Browne's true medical status.
- On Dreams Sir T.B. as proto-psychologist. Get that creaky spelling!
- Upon the darke thick miste 17th C. freak Climatic conditions
- Account of a thunderstorm 17th C. freak Climatic conditions
- On Bubbles Forever blowing, forever observing nature's properties.
- On Echoes
- Observations on frogs
- Observations on eggs
- On fossil remains in Norfolk
- On Arthur Dee On his friendship with Arthur Dee to Elias Ashmole.
- Alchemical manuscripts Offered to loan to Ashmole in correspondence dated 1658 (see above).
- from Latin original
- To a friend intending a difficult work
- from Latin original
- To an illustrious friend on his wearisome Chatterer
- from Latin original
- From a reading of Athenaeus
- from Latin original
- The Sea-fight
- from Latin original
- Notes on Cookery of the ancients
I just love these lines-
I wish we knew more clearly the aids of the ancients, their sauces, flavours, digestives, tasties, slices, cold meats, and all kinds of pickles. Yet I do not know whether they would have surpassed salted sturgeons’ eggs, anchovy sauce, or our royal pickles.
Along with gastrognomic pleasures it appears Dr. T.B was well-aquainted with peculiarities of human sexual behaviour -
The impudent wantonness of the ancients placed sponges in the natural parts of women that by expanding they might produce a lewd and as it were haunching movement in the female, whence a keener lust is provoked in the male. In the elaborations of coition almost nothing has been untried.....the indecent egg of Aurelius (from a reading of Athenaeus)
To read a selection of Browne's best quotations go to http://quote.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Browne
The Romantic poet and essayist Coleridge wrote perceptively upon Sir T.B. Letter on Browne. A small piece by Coleridge on The Alchemists is also available.
Other medical authors
Hippocrates (circa 460 BCE - 377 BCE) "the father of medicine"
- On ancient medicine
- Aphorisms
- On injuries to the head
- On Fractures
- On acute diseases
- On Epidemics (with case-histories)
- On Surgery
- On Prognostics
Paracelsus (1493-1543) Swiss alchemist-physician
Whilst I may appear to be heavily monothematic my interests are more diverse, honest! Visit my vanity page at Wikipedia to find out what else I'm into. http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Norwikian