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Sir Thomas Browne: The Opium of Time
In this book, Gavin Francis writes about the resonance for him as a medic in reading the work of early modern polymath Sir Thomas Browne.
Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682) was an English physician, wordsmith, and polymath who contributed hundreds of words to the English language (such as medical, electricity, migrant, and computer). After studying medicine in Montpellier, Padua, and Leiden, he settled in Norwich, where he practised as a doctor and wrote some of the greatest books of the seventeenth century, still read for their accessibility and eloquence.
In Sir Thomas The Opium of Time , Dr Gavin Francis examines Browne's work through a variety of ambiguity, curiosity, vitality, piety, humility, misogyny, mobility, and mortality. He argues that the work has lost little of its power and wisdom, and none of its beauty. Religio Medici ('Religion of the Doctor') examined the vexed question of faith in a God who, to a physician, seemed indifferent to suffering. Pseudodoxia Epidemica ('Vulgar Errors') gave free rein to an agile curiosity and sought to debunk notions then commonly believed, such as that dead kingfishers indicate the direction of the wind, or that a woman could get pregnant from sharing a bath with a man. Urne Buriall was Browne's meditation on mortality, occasioned by a find of funerary urns, while Museum Clausum ('Hidden Museum') sets out a series of thought experiments and counterfactuals, such as how history might have been different had Alexander the Great marched west instead of east.
Gavin Francis draws on his own experiences as a twenty-first century writer and doctor to discover that although many centuries separate him from Browne, they share a fundamental curiosity about the world and about people.
Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682) was an English physician, wordsmith, and polymath who contributed hundreds of words to the English language (such as medical, electricity, migrant, and computer). After studying medicine in Montpellier, Padua, and Leiden, he settled in Norwich, where he practised as a doctor and wrote some of the greatest books of the seventeenth century, still read for their accessibility and eloquence.
In Sir Thomas The Opium of Time , Dr Gavin Francis examines Browne's work through a variety of ambiguity, curiosity, vitality, piety, humility, misogyny, mobility, and mortality. He argues that the work has lost little of its power and wisdom, and none of its beauty. Religio Medici ('Religion of the Doctor') examined the vexed question of faith in a God who, to a physician, seemed indifferent to suffering. Pseudodoxia Epidemica ('Vulgar Errors') gave free rein to an agile curiosity and sought to debunk notions then commonly believed, such as that dead kingfishers indicate the direction of the wind, or that a woman could get pregnant from sharing a bath with a man. Urne Buriall was Browne's meditation on mortality, occasioned by a find of funerary urns, while Museum Clausum ('Hidden Museum') sets out a series of thought experiments and counterfactuals, such as how history might have been different had Alexander the Great marched west instead of east.
Gavin Francis draws on his own experiences as a twenty-first century writer and doctor to discover that although many centuries separate him from Browne, they share a fundamental curiosity about the world and about people.
176 pages, Hardcover
Published August 25, 2023
12 people want to read
About the author
Gavin Francis
21 books138 followersGavin Francis was born in Scotland in 1975, and has travelled widely on all seven continents. He has crossed Eurasia by motorcycle, and spent a year in Antarctica. He works as a medical doctor as well as a writer.
When travelling he is most interested in the way that places shapes the lives and stories of the people who live in them.
His first book, True North: Travels in Arctic Europe, explores the history of Europe's expansion northwards from the first Greek explorers to the Polar expeditions of the late 19th and 20th centuries. It was nominated for a William Mills Prize for Polar Books. Of it Robert Macfarlane wrote: 'a seriously accomplished first book, by a versatile and interesting writer... it is set apart by the elegance and grace of its prose, and by its abiding interest in landscapes of the mind. Francis explores not only the terrain of the far North, but also the ways in which the North has been imagined... a dense and unusual book.'
In 2011 he received a Creative Scotland Writer's Award towards the completion of a book about the year he spent living beside a colony of Emperor Penguins in Antarctica. Empire Antarctica will be published by Chatto & Windus in November 2012.
When travelling he is most interested in the way that places shapes the lives and stories of the people who live in them.
His first book, True North: Travels in Arctic Europe, explores the history of Europe's expansion northwards from the first Greek explorers to the Polar expeditions of the late 19th and 20th centuries. It was nominated for a William Mills Prize for Polar Books. Of it Robert Macfarlane wrote: 'a seriously accomplished first book, by a versatile and interesting writer... it is set apart by the elegance and grace of its prose, and by its abiding interest in landscapes of the mind. Francis explores not only the terrain of the far North, but also the ways in which the North has been imagined... a dense and unusual book.'
In 2011 he received a Creative Scotland Writer's Award towards the completion of a book about the year he spent living beside a colony of Emperor Penguins in Antarctica. Empire Antarctica will be published by Chatto & Windus in November 2012.
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August 29, 2023
The 21st century Renaissance of interest in Sir Thomas Browne (1605-82) continues to flourish with a new, insightful appreciation by the Edinburgh-based doctor Gavin Francis on the seventeenth century physician-philosopher. The Opium of Time includes a generous selection of quotations from Browne's selected writings relevant to the themes of its eight, stand-alone chapters; these in turn are bookended by two reflective letters addressed to Browne in which the author reminds his reader of the very big differences in belief, culture and science between our world today and the seventeenth century of Browne's era.
Dr. Francis joins the ranks of other physicians who have admired Thomas Browne, these include the distinguished Canadian doctor William Osler (1849-1919), the surgeon Sir Geoffrey Keynes, and the Norwich-based GP Anthony Batty-Shaw (1922-2015). Much of the strength of Dr. Francis's appreciation rests in a shared profession for although separated by centuries he recognises that, in many ways little has changed in the role of his profession since Browne's day. Faced with human illness and suffering the role of the physician as a well-informed and trusted confidant has altered little. In this respect The Opium of Time transcends the technicalities of literary criticism, highlighting Browne's tolerance, humility and compassion as key components of a shared humanism. The discourse Urn-Burial and Christian Morals in particular are much favoured by the author as exemplary of Browne's psychological understanding of the human condition, encapsulated in pithy aphorisms such as 'Sorrows destroy us or themselves'.
Its refreshing to read in The Opium of Time of the influence of the Swiss alchemist-physician Paracelsus (1493-1541). During his short life Paracelsus dedicated himself to the art of healing, declaring 'Compassion is the physician's teacher'. Crucially, he urged physicians to experiment upon nature's properties in order to discover new chemicals for medical use, Browne himself knew 'that every plant might receive a name according unto the disease it cureth, was the wish of Paracelsus' [1] As a critical follower of Paracelsus, Browne, like the Swiss physician, was both early chemist and alchemist, the difference between the two activities being fluid not fixed, even with latter scientific figures such as Robert Boyle (1627-91) and Isaac Newton (1643-1727).
Its primarily because of Dr. Francis's non-judgemental mention of the influence of Paracelsian medicine when others have either denounced, or what's worse, ridiculed Browne's 'spagyric' medicine (the Paracelsian neologism 'spagyric' is inscribed in verse on Browne's coffin-plate) that The Opium of Time can be said to be the most insightful book by a medical professional on Browne since William Osler's day, over a century ago.
The parallel between the humility of Christian faith and the humility of caring work in nursing and medicine is noted by Dr. Francis, a staunch advocate of the beloved but beleaguered institute founded upon Christian values known as the NHS. and in Browne's day devout physicians took inspiration from Christ's Ministry. Although not sharing his subject's religious faith, Dr. Francis nevertheless applauds his Christian stoicism, engendered one suspects, by a shared close proximity to human suffering and mortality in profession. A concern about the regeneration of the social, religious and moral values once instilled by Christianity is voiced in the author's proposition that, 'As Europeans we've yet to take the best from our own traditions, and many possibilities for how to build on them remain unexplored'.
Gavin Francis also highlights Browne's little-recognised sense of humour, a tool which used carefully, he suggests, can assist the doctor-patient relationship when faced with seemingly unsurpassable dilemmas. Humour is encountered throughout Browne's writings. His quip on William Harvey's detection of the circulation of the blood as being, “a discovery I prefer to that of Columbus” (i.e that of America) [3] is typical of his dry and learned humour. His most sustained piece of humour is the hilarious, 'To an illustrious friend on his wearisome Chatterer' which may have been composed in order to cheer up his friend Joseph Hall (1574-1656) an author of satirical character sketches who was deposed as Bishop Of Norwich in 1643 for supporting the Royalist cause.
In addition to examining the influence of piety and humility upon Browne's intellect and spirituality, Dr. Francis also tackles the thorny subject of the physician's involvement in a witch trial, discussing how much he was influenced by the endemic misogyny of his era. Browne never testified at the Bury trial, nor could his opinion have influenced any verdict while the patriarchal authority of the Judaic Old Testament held blind sway over reason. A single verse in the Old Testament sanctioned and 'justified' the legal condemnation to death of what is estimated to have been a quarter million of mostly women throughout Europe from 1400-1700.
Much has been made on what is one of the very few biographical details known about Browne, often inviting disapproval from a comfortably removed historical perspective. His culpability and supposed failure in risking his status and social standing when faced with mass-mind irrationality and legalized prejudice is often exaggerated. Its worthwhile remembering, as Dr. Francis does, that Browne dedicated a large part of his life to relieving the suffering of others. His psychological observation that, 'No man can justly censure or condemn another because indeed no man truly knows another' seems applicable here. [5]
Dr. Francis shares with his subject in a love of travel, both doctors recognising that travel usually broadens the mind in tolerance, understanding and appreciation of different societies and cultures. Its thus an easy excuse for the author to visit Padua in Italy and Leiden in the Netherlands in search of traces of Browne's academic sojourns. Replete with original observations which others have overlooked, Dr. Francis highlights how Thomas Browne, even in old age, enjoyed reading, or having read to him, accounts by traveller's from distant lands such as Africa, India and China. Throughout The Opium of Time one also learns more of Dr. Francis's own extensive travels which have included working visits to India and Africa as well as Antarctica.
In a book which is engaging in narrative, the author takes delight as many others, in Browne's inventive coining of new words into the English language. Browne's neologisms catered for the need for a preciser vocabulary in the early scientific revolution and many, such as 'electricity' 'ambidextrous' 'network' cater for this need. Through his deep study and understanding of Greek and Latin Browne is also credited with introducing words associated with his profession such as 'medical', 'pathology' and 'hallucination' for example.
Thomas Browne gave good advice to literary critics when declaring - 'If the substantial subject be well forged we need not examine the sparks which fly irregularly from it'. [6]
The Opium of Time is a wholly original response to the Renaissance humanism, wit and scholarship of Thomas Browne, nevertheless a few 'irregular sparks' fly from it, silently smouldering in the deep pile carpet of truth. Credence is given to the unreliable narrator of W.G. Sebald's The Rings of Saturn with its mischievous addition of fictitious imagery at the conclusion of The Garden of Cyrus while a regret that Aldrovandi's Monstrorum Historia would not have been known to Browne is groundless. Throughout his life Thomas Browne kept well-abreast on the latest publications, both nationally and internationally. The 1711 Sales Auction Catalogue is solid evidence of the vast and extraordinary range of his interests. Its pages also suggest that Aldrovandi was one of Browne's favourite authors. His 'Monstrorum Historia' along with half a dozen other books by the Italian zoologist are listed in it. [7]
Nor can one agree that Browne's choice of a 'provincial general practise' is exemplary of his humility. Norwich was England's second city in Browne's day, a position it occupied until the early Industrial Revolution. Densely populated and surrounded by a highly-productive agricultural hinterland, the ancient City had important links in trade, culture and travel to mainland Europe, in particular the Netherlands. As the home to a wealthy gentry who were financially able to consult and afford a doctor's fees, Norwich was an ideal location for an ambitious, newly-qualified physician to establish a medical practise in order to support a wife, home and family.
But by far the greatest weakness of The Opium of Time is its author's reluctance to acknowledge Browne's esoteric inclinations, resulting in an incomplete portrait of the seventeenth century physician-philosopher. Other than a welcome mention of the medical influence of Paracelsus, Dr. Francis is reluctant to discuss Browne's relationship to esotericism. Its a reluctance which results in the removal of a whole sentence of text. An entire sentence in which Browne makes a tacit nod to like-minded influences upon him, 'It was the opinion of Plate and is yet of the Hermetical philosophers', is removed and replaced thus .... and not presumably for the purposes of page formatting or in order to save ink. [8]
Such glossing over of Browne's esoteric credentials is regrettable. Its a slippery path to travel upon if, for example, one dislikes the sentiment expressed in a few bars of a Beethoven symphony or imagery in the lines of a Shakespeare sonnet to simply extract and omit them from a work of art.
Dr. Francis notes of a passage in Urn-Burial, that - 'It is almost as if Browne wished death and new life to sit adjacent on the page. He seemed to want to demonstrate the fraternity of life and death, their interdependence.' But in fact its more through the physical binding and union of the twin Discourses Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus that Browne ingeniously demonstrates this fraternity.
Slender in volume but compressed with original observations and well-attuned in empathy with its subject, The Opium of Time will be enjoyed by many and enlighten its readers, long may it remain in print.
Books consulted
* The Opium of Time: Gavin Francis OUP 2023
* Shapeshifters: A doctor's notes on medicine and human change Gavin Francis Wellcome Collection 2016
* The Major Works of Sir Thomas Browne edited and with an Introduction by C. A. Patrides Penguin 1977
* A Catalogue of the Libraries of Sir Thomas Browne and Dr Edward Browne, his son. A Facsimile Reproduction with an Introduction, Notes and Index by J.S. Finch pub. E. J .Brill 1986
Notes
[1] Pseudodoxia Epidemica Book 2 chapter 7
[2] Matthew 4:23
[3] In Browne's correspondence to Henry Power
[4] Exodus 22 verse 18
[5] Religio Medici Part 2:4
[6] Christian Morals Part 2: Section 2
[7] Aldrovandi's Monstrorum Historicum Bologna 1642 is listed in the 1711 Sales Auction Catalogue on page 18 no. 23
Dr. Francis joins the ranks of other physicians who have admired Thomas Browne, these include the distinguished Canadian doctor William Osler (1849-1919), the surgeon Sir Geoffrey Keynes, and the Norwich-based GP Anthony Batty-Shaw (1922-2015). Much of the strength of Dr. Francis's appreciation rests in a shared profession for although separated by centuries he recognises that, in many ways little has changed in the role of his profession since Browne's day. Faced with human illness and suffering the role of the physician as a well-informed and trusted confidant has altered little. In this respect The Opium of Time transcends the technicalities of literary criticism, highlighting Browne's tolerance, humility and compassion as key components of a shared humanism. The discourse Urn-Burial and Christian Morals in particular are much favoured by the author as exemplary of Browne's psychological understanding of the human condition, encapsulated in pithy aphorisms such as 'Sorrows destroy us or themselves'.
Its refreshing to read in The Opium of Time of the influence of the Swiss alchemist-physician Paracelsus (1493-1541). During his short life Paracelsus dedicated himself to the art of healing, declaring 'Compassion is the physician's teacher'. Crucially, he urged physicians to experiment upon nature's properties in order to discover new chemicals for medical use, Browne himself knew 'that every plant might receive a name according unto the disease it cureth, was the wish of Paracelsus' [1] As a critical follower of Paracelsus, Browne, like the Swiss physician, was both early chemist and alchemist, the difference between the two activities being fluid not fixed, even with latter scientific figures such as Robert Boyle (1627-91) and Isaac Newton (1643-1727).
Its primarily because of Dr. Francis's non-judgemental mention of the influence of Paracelsian medicine when others have either denounced, or what's worse, ridiculed Browne's 'spagyric' medicine (the Paracelsian neologism 'spagyric' is inscribed in verse on Browne's coffin-plate) that The Opium of Time can be said to be the most insightful book by a medical professional on Browne since William Osler's day, over a century ago.
The parallel between the humility of Christian faith and the humility of caring work in nursing and medicine is noted by Dr. Francis, a staunch advocate of the beloved but beleaguered institute founded upon Christian values known as the NHS. and in Browne's day devout physicians took inspiration from Christ's Ministry. Although not sharing his subject's religious faith, Dr. Francis nevertheless applauds his Christian stoicism, engendered one suspects, by a shared close proximity to human suffering and mortality in profession. A concern about the regeneration of the social, religious and moral values once instilled by Christianity is voiced in the author's proposition that, 'As Europeans we've yet to take the best from our own traditions, and many possibilities for how to build on them remain unexplored'.
Gavin Francis also highlights Browne's little-recognised sense of humour, a tool which used carefully, he suggests, can assist the doctor-patient relationship when faced with seemingly unsurpassable dilemmas. Humour is encountered throughout Browne's writings. His quip on William Harvey's detection of the circulation of the blood as being, “a discovery I prefer to that of Columbus” (i.e that of America) [3] is typical of his dry and learned humour. His most sustained piece of humour is the hilarious, 'To an illustrious friend on his wearisome Chatterer' which may have been composed in order to cheer up his friend Joseph Hall (1574-1656) an author of satirical character sketches who was deposed as Bishop Of Norwich in 1643 for supporting the Royalist cause.
In addition to examining the influence of piety and humility upon Browne's intellect and spirituality, Dr. Francis also tackles the thorny subject of the physician's involvement in a witch trial, discussing how much he was influenced by the endemic misogyny of his era. Browne never testified at the Bury trial, nor could his opinion have influenced any verdict while the patriarchal authority of the Judaic Old Testament held blind sway over reason. A single verse in the Old Testament sanctioned and 'justified' the legal condemnation to death of what is estimated to have been a quarter million of mostly women throughout Europe from 1400-1700.
Much has been made on what is one of the very few biographical details known about Browne, often inviting disapproval from a comfortably removed historical perspective. His culpability and supposed failure in risking his status and social standing when faced with mass-mind irrationality and legalized prejudice is often exaggerated. Its worthwhile remembering, as Dr. Francis does, that Browne dedicated a large part of his life to relieving the suffering of others. His psychological observation that, 'No man can justly censure or condemn another because indeed no man truly knows another' seems applicable here. [5]
Dr. Francis shares with his subject in a love of travel, both doctors recognising that travel usually broadens the mind in tolerance, understanding and appreciation of different societies and cultures. Its thus an easy excuse for the author to visit Padua in Italy and Leiden in the Netherlands in search of traces of Browne's academic sojourns. Replete with original observations which others have overlooked, Dr. Francis highlights how Thomas Browne, even in old age, enjoyed reading, or having read to him, accounts by traveller's from distant lands such as Africa, India and China. Throughout The Opium of Time one also learns more of Dr. Francis's own extensive travels which have included working visits to India and Africa as well as Antarctica.
In a book which is engaging in narrative, the author takes delight as many others, in Browne's inventive coining of new words into the English language. Browne's neologisms catered for the need for a preciser vocabulary in the early scientific revolution and many, such as 'electricity' 'ambidextrous' 'network' cater for this need. Through his deep study and understanding of Greek and Latin Browne is also credited with introducing words associated with his profession such as 'medical', 'pathology' and 'hallucination' for example.
Thomas Browne gave good advice to literary critics when declaring - 'If the substantial subject be well forged we need not examine the sparks which fly irregularly from it'. [6]
The Opium of Time is a wholly original response to the Renaissance humanism, wit and scholarship of Thomas Browne, nevertheless a few 'irregular sparks' fly from it, silently smouldering in the deep pile carpet of truth. Credence is given to the unreliable narrator of W.G. Sebald's The Rings of Saturn with its mischievous addition of fictitious imagery at the conclusion of The Garden of Cyrus while a regret that Aldrovandi's Monstrorum Historia would not have been known to Browne is groundless. Throughout his life Thomas Browne kept well-abreast on the latest publications, both nationally and internationally. The 1711 Sales Auction Catalogue is solid evidence of the vast and extraordinary range of his interests. Its pages also suggest that Aldrovandi was one of Browne's favourite authors. His 'Monstrorum Historia' along with half a dozen other books by the Italian zoologist are listed in it. [7]
Nor can one agree that Browne's choice of a 'provincial general practise' is exemplary of his humility. Norwich was England's second city in Browne's day, a position it occupied until the early Industrial Revolution. Densely populated and surrounded by a highly-productive agricultural hinterland, the ancient City had important links in trade, culture and travel to mainland Europe, in particular the Netherlands. As the home to a wealthy gentry who were financially able to consult and afford a doctor's fees, Norwich was an ideal location for an ambitious, newly-qualified physician to establish a medical practise in order to support a wife, home and family.
But by far the greatest weakness of The Opium of Time is its author's reluctance to acknowledge Browne's esoteric inclinations, resulting in an incomplete portrait of the seventeenth century physician-philosopher. Other than a welcome mention of the medical influence of Paracelsus, Dr. Francis is reluctant to discuss Browne's relationship to esotericism. Its a reluctance which results in the removal of a whole sentence of text. An entire sentence in which Browne makes a tacit nod to like-minded influences upon him, 'It was the opinion of Plate and is yet of the Hermetical philosophers', is removed and replaced thus .... and not presumably for the purposes of page formatting or in order to save ink. [8]
Such glossing over of Browne's esoteric credentials is regrettable. Its a slippery path to travel upon if, for example, one dislikes the sentiment expressed in a few bars of a Beethoven symphony or imagery in the lines of a Shakespeare sonnet to simply extract and omit them from a work of art.
Dr. Francis notes of a passage in Urn-Burial, that - 'It is almost as if Browne wished death and new life to sit adjacent on the page. He seemed to want to demonstrate the fraternity of life and death, their interdependence.' But in fact its more through the physical binding and union of the twin Discourses Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus that Browne ingeniously demonstrates this fraternity.
Slender in volume but compressed with original observations and well-attuned in empathy with its subject, The Opium of Time will be enjoyed by many and enlighten its readers, long may it remain in print.
Books consulted
* The Opium of Time: Gavin Francis OUP 2023
* Shapeshifters: A doctor's notes on medicine and human change Gavin Francis Wellcome Collection 2016
* The Major Works of Sir Thomas Browne edited and with an Introduction by C. A. Patrides Penguin 1977
* A Catalogue of the Libraries of Sir Thomas Browne and Dr Edward Browne, his son. A Facsimile Reproduction with an Introduction, Notes and Index by J.S. Finch pub. E. J .Brill 1986
Notes
[1] Pseudodoxia Epidemica Book 2 chapter 7
[2] Matthew 4:23
[3] In Browne's correspondence to Henry Power
[4] Exodus 22 verse 18
[5] Religio Medici Part 2:4
[6] Christian Morals Part 2: Section 2
[7] Aldrovandi's Monstrorum Historicum Bologna 1642 is listed in the 1711 Sales Auction Catalogue on page 18 no. 23
June 1, 2024
The best discoveries at Hay are always the books you never even knew existed, let alone that you wanted to read them. Thank you therefore to Gavin Francis for introducing me to someone who has been important to many of my own favourite authors (Kafka, Borges, Alasdair Gray ...): his enthusiasm shines through the pages of this book, and makes Browne relevant to the present day. I'm looking forward to discovering even more when The Voyce of the World arrives next week.
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