Medicine and magic in Elizabethan London : Simon Forman - astrologer, alchemist, and physician PDF
Preview Medicine and magic in Elizabethan London : Simon Forman - astrologer, alchemist, and physician
Medicine and Magic in Elizabethan London Simon Forman: Astrologer, Alchemist, and Physician CLARENDON PRESS · OXFORD 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan South Korea Poland Portugal Singapore Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Lauren Kassell The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published First published in paperback All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available ISBN––– –––– ISBN–––(Pbk.) ––––(Pbk.) Typeset by Graphicraft Ltd., Hong Kong Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Biddles Ltd. King’s Lynn, Norfolk ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Simon Forman had a habit of writing, Richard Napier preserved his papers, Elias Ashmole hoarded them for posterity, and William Black masterfully catalogued them. My first debt is to Forman, my second to those who saved and sorted his papers. I have incurred countless other debts. Margaret Pelling has met many drafts with generous comments, fostering my understanding of early modern medi- cine and holding me to her scrupulous standards. Tony Grafton, Simon Schaffer, and Charles Webster have periodically read recensions of this book and shared their visions of Forman’s world, confident that my archival prospecting would pay off. Jim Secord read a complete draft and made sugges- tions, such as the chronology, in the interests of the reader. Earlier Stuart Clark and Paul Slack suggested how to make the study broader and more coherent, and Paul has read subsequent drafts and shepherded the book through the press, trusting me to do what needed to be done. Versions of individual chap- ters have benefited from the comments of David Colclough, Marina Frasca Spada, Nick Jardine, Helen King, Bill Newman, Sophie Page, and anonymous readers. Often my mining and foraging turned to scrounging, and I am enor- mously grateful to the following for sharing their manuscript references and/or arcane expertise: Penny Bayer, Helen Brocklebank, Peter Forshaw, Peter Grund, Deborah Harkness, Susan Hitch, Martin Ingram, Mark Jenner, Peter Jones, David Katz, Giles Mandelbrote, Scott Mandelbrote, Sara Pennell, Max Satchell, and Bill Sherman. I have presented work on Forman to audiences in Oxford, Cambridge, Geneva, London, Manchester, and Princeton and I am grateful for their questions. I apologize to anyone I have forgotten. Many people have contributed to this book, and responsibility for its shortcomings and faults are wholly my own. This project also has had enormous institutional support, direct and tacit. I began work on it in the ‘old’ Wellcome Unit, Oxford, a community that inspired rigour and independence. Two years of research and a trip to Jerusalem were funded by the Wellcome Trust. The Department of History, University of Aberdeen, briefly housed me. Pembroke College, Cambridge, supported me for two years as the R. A. Butler Research Fellow, and has provided a grant towards the illustrations. With fondness I remember the welcome I received in Pembroke and Cambridge from the late Mark Kaplanoff. The Department of Acknowledgements vii History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, home to some of the people listed above and many friends, has collectively willed me to com- pletion. The Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, has given me more time than I knew I needed. The Society for the Social History of Medicine awarded a much abbreviated and now revised version of Part III its Essay Prize, ‘How to Read Simon Forman’s Casebooks: Medicine, Astrology and Gender in Elizabethan London’, Social History of Medicine,(),–, and I owe them gratitude for this award and Oxford University Press for permission to revisit that material in this book. Bill Newman and Tony Grafton nursed the germs of Part IV into print, ‘“The Food of Angels”: Simon Forman’s Alchemical Medicine’, in Anthony Grafton and William Newman (eds.), Secrets of Nature: Astrology and Alchemy in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, Mass., ),–, and MIT Press has allowed me to include this material here. I am also indebted to the Bodleian Library, Oxford, the British Library, the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington DC, the Provost and Fellows of King’s College, Cambridge, the National Portrait Gallery, and the Master and Fellows of Pembroke College, Cambridge, for permission to reproduce images from their collections. I am grateful to the Royal Society for a grant towards the costs of the illustrations. Librarians and library staff throughout Britain and the United States have been more than accommodating. My dependence on the Bodleian Library, Oxford, is self-evident, and I am especially indebted to the staff in Duke Humphrey’s Library, Alan Carter, Russell Edwards, Jean-Pierre Mialon, and William Hodges. Ashmole’s volumes are big and heavy and only now am I learning not to want to look again at the ones I have just returned to the stacks. Finally, in all of these places I have had many friends who bore with my talk of Forman and talked about other things. This book was begun when I stayed in England to be with Joad, and with him and for him it was written. L.K. June CONTENTS List of Illustrations x List ofTables xii Abbreviations and Conventions xiii List of Astrological Symbols xv Chronology xvi Introduction I. THE MAKING OF AN ASTROLOGER-PHYSICIAN . Early Life and Learning . Astronomy, Magic, and the Mathematical Practitioners of London . How to Write like a Magus II. PLAGUE AND THE COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS OF LONDON . The College of Physicians and Irregular Medicine in London, c.– . Plague and Paracelsianism III. THE CASEBOOKS . How to Read the Casebooks . Gender, Authority, and Astrology IV. ALCHEMY, MAGIC, AND MEDICINE . ‘Of Cako’, or the Medical Uses of Antimony . The Food of Angels . Magic and Medicine Conclusion Bibliography Index of Manuscripts General Index LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Frontispiece: Portrait of Simon Forman by John Bulfinch (fl. –), engraved by Richard Godfrey ii .. ‘The bocke of the life of and generation of Simon’, Ashm. , fo. .. Simon Forman’s nativity, Ashm. , fo. ..–. Simon Forman’s ‘Diary’ for , Ashm. , fos. v– .. Simon Forman’s copy of George Ripley’s ‘The compound of alchemy’, Ashm. , fo. .. Simon Forman, The groundes of the longitude (), title-page .. ‘A table of the motion of the heaven that I found in an old parchment bocke’, Ashm. , fo. v .. Simon Forman, ‘The grounds of arte’, c.–, Ashm. , fo. .. Simon Forman, ‘The astrologicalle judgmentes of phisick and other questions’, –, with later revisions, Ashm. , fo. [] .. Simon Forman, ‘Liber juditiorum morborum’, , Ashm. , fo. .. Richard Napier, ‘A treatise touching the defenc of astrologie’, c.–, Ashm. , fo. .. Simon Forman’s list of conflicts with the physicians on the end pages of a casebook, Ashm. , fo. .. Simon Forman’s note of the purchase of a book in Oxford on Feb. , King’s MS , fo. v .. Simon Forman’s typology of plague .. John Melton, Astrologaster(), title-page .. ‘The natures of the howses for judgment of diseases and the cause therof’, Ashm. , fo. [] .. A table ‘To knowe in what place of the body every plannet doth cause distempratur or disease and what part they rule’, Ashm. , p. .. Entries in Simon Forman’s casebooks for October , Ashm. , fo. .. The first page of Simon Forman’s recipe for his ‘Water imperialle’, Sloane , fo. .. A page from the fair copy of Forman’s casebook, Ashm. , fo. .. Simon Forman, ‘Matrix and paine therof’, , Ashm. , fo. List of Illustrations xi .. Simon Forman’s copy of ‘Of cako’, an anonymized and altered version of Alexander von Suchten’s ‘Second treatise on antimony’, Ashm., fo. .. ‘Cako’ in ‘Principles of philosofie’, Ashm. , p. .. ‘Antimony’ in ‘Of appoticarie druges’, Ashm. , p. .. A page of the ‘Life of Adam and Eve’, transcribed and annotated by Simon Forman, Ashm. , ii, fo. .. A page from one of Simon Forman’s copies of the ‘Ars notoria’, Jones , fo. .. Calculations for and drawings of the sigil made for Martha Shackleton, April , Ashm. , fo. v LIST OF TABLES .. Sex and type of all consultations, March –February .. Frequency of consultations, March –February .. Numbers of treatments and prescriptions, March–May inclusive .. Types of treatments and prescriptions, March–May inclusive ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS Annals London, Royal College of Physicians, Annals Bk. ,–, tr. J. Emberry and S. Heathcote (–) Ashm. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ashmole MS ‘Astrologicalle judgmentes’ Simon Forman, ‘The astrologicalle judgmentes of phisick and other questions’, Ashm. ,, BL London, British Library Bodleian Oxford, Bodleian Library ‘Defenc’ Richard Napier, ‘A treatise touching the defenc of astrologie’, Ashm. , fos. –, continued , fos. – DNB Dictionary of National Biography, ed. L. Stephen and S. Lee, vols. (–), with supplements Folger Washington, DC, Folger Shakespeare Library ‘Grounds of arte’ Simon Forman, ‘The grounds of arte gathered out of diverse authors’, Ashm. ‘Heavens’ Simon Forman, ‘The motion of the superiour heavens’, Ashm. , fos. – King’s Cambridge, King’s College ‘Life’ ‘Life of Adam and Eve’, in H. F. D. Sparks (ed.), The Apocryphal Old Testament(Oxford, ), –; Ashm. , ii Longitude Simon Forman, The groundes of the longitude () ‘Matrix’ Simon Forman, ‘Matrix and paine therof’, Ashm., fos. –; ed. Barbara Traister, ‘“Matrix and the pain thereof”: A Sixteenth- Century Gynaecological Essay’, Medical History,(),– OED Oxford English Dictionary <http://dictionary.oed.com/> Sloane London, British Library, Sloane MS xiv Abbreviations and Conventions STC A. W. Pollard and G. R. Redgrave, A Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, and Ireland,nd edn. () Trinity Cambridge, Trinity College The place of publication is London unless otherwise noted. All quotations are in the original spelling with i/j and u/v modernized and contractions expanded. Duplicate words and other minor copying errors have been silently corrected. Most first names have been standardized. Forman wrote in a distinctive, often archaic fashion. Where necessary for clarity, punctuation has been added. Existing punctuation has been modern- ized, usually converting full stops into commas and slashes into full stops. The erratic use of capital letters has been retained when conveying emphasis. Red ink and different scripts are recorded in footnotes where relevant. The word ‘wordle’ for ‘world’ is a hallmark of his writings, and the letters have not been un-transposed. Forman’s malapropisms remain. Usually the most recent set of foliation or pagination in a manuscript is cited. Item numbers are omitted where citations are to a single set of numera- tion running throughout a volume. All folio and signature references are to the recto unless otherwise noted. Brackets indicate numbers that have been inferred. Dates are given in Old Style, except the year is taken to begin on January. References to the Annals include the page and date of the record. References to the casebooks include volume numbers and the name and date heading a consultation, omitting folio references unless the dated records are out of sequence.
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