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.

Michael Maier- Epigram verse to Atalanta Fugiens For 2005 the year of Browne's quattrocentennary, I've transcribed An Alphabetical Table which appendices Browne's encyclopaedia Pseudodoxia Epidemica. Take a look at my harmless drudgery at-

Pseudodoxia Epidemica An Alphabetical Table.

Major writings

The Garden of Cyrus (1658) Browne's most learned esoteric essay. Verily 'tis a network of connections in the spheres of art, nature and mysticism upon the number five, the lozenge shape, the figure X and reticulated patterns; all of which are exemplary of the archetypal world and creative mind of God, all discerned and described in ornate and Baroque stream-of-consciousness awareness.

A Letter to a Friend            Doctor T.B's major medical essay.

Shorter pieces

Commonplace notebooks        Very revealing of Browne's enquiring mind. Medical Observations      Essential to assess Browne's medical status. On Dreams                 Sir T.B. as proto-psychologist.

Upon the darke thick miste 17th C. freak Climate conditions

Account of a thunderstorm 17th C. freak Climate 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).

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.

Dr. T.B was aware of and prudish of   peculiar  human sexual behaviours
 * 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.

The Sea-fight from Latin original

Notes on Cookery of the ancients from Latin original. 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.

To read a selection of Browne's best quotations go to http://quote.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Browne

See also  '''Samuel Taylor Coleridge http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Letter_on_Browne
 * http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Alchemists

Whilst I appear to be heavily monothematic my interests are diverser, honest! Visit my User page at Wikipedia for my other contributions. http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Norwikian