Religio Medici (The Religion of a Doctor) by Sir Thomas Browne is a spiritual testament and early psychological self-portrait. Published in 1642 after an unauthorized version was distributed the previous year, it became a European best-seller which brought its author fame at home and abroad.
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Structured upon the Christian virtues of Faith and Hope (part 1) and Charity (part 2), Browne expresses his beliefs in the doctrine of sola fide , the existence of hell, the Last Judgment , the resurrection and other tenets of Christianity.
Throughout Religio Medici Browne uses scientific imagery to illustrate religious truths as part of his discussion on the relationship of science to religion. [1] [2] [3]
A rare surviving contemporary review by Guy Patin, a distinguished member of the Parisian medical faculty, indicates the considerable impact Religio Medici had upon the intelligentsia abroad:
A new little volume has arrived from Holland entitled Religio Medici written by an Englishman and translated into Latin by some Dutchman. It is a strange and pleasant book, but very delicate and wholly mystical; the author is not lacking in wit and you will see in him quaint and delightful thoughts. There are hardly any books of this sort. If scholars were permitted to write freely we would learn many novel things, never has there been a newspaper to this; in this way the subtlety of the human spirit could be revealed. [4]
Throughout the seventeenth century Religio Medici spawned numerous imitative titles, including John Dryden's great poem, Religio Laici, but none matched the frank, intimate tone of the original in which Browne shares his thoughts, as well as the idiosyncrasies of his personality with his reader.
Samuel Pepys in his Diary transcribed William Petty's opinion that the Religio was "cried up to the whole world for its wit and learning" but "the wit lie in confirming some pretty sayings, which are generally like paradoxes, by some argument smartly and pleasantly argued". [5]
A translation into German of the Religio was made in 1746 and an early admirer of Browne's spiritual testament was Goethe's one-time associate Lavater.
In the early nineteenth century Religio Medici was "re-discovered" by the English Romantics. Charles Lamb introduced it to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who after reading it, exclaimed,-
O to write a character of this man!
Thomas de Quincey in his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater also praised it, stating: [6]
I do not recollect more than one thing said adequately on the subject of music in all literature. It is a passage in Religio Medici of Sir T. Browne, and though chiefly remarkable for its sublimity, has also a philosophical value, inasmuch as it points to the true theory of musical effects.
The book strongly influenced the prominent physician William Osler in his early years. Osler, who is considered the "father of modern medicine", is said to have learned it by heart. [7]
In Virginia Woolf's opinion Religio Medici paved the way for all future confessionals, private memoirs and personal writings.
In the twentieth century, the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung used the term Religio Medici several times in his writings. [8]
Dorothy L. Sayers in her novel Gaudy Night has Harriet Vane discover that Peter Wimsey is reading Religio Medici. It helps her better understand his character and motivations.
Patricia Highsmith’s novel Strangers on a Train references a morocco-bound copy of the work, and Guy reflects on his favorite passages.
In Excellent Women by Barbara Pym, the sad, spinsterish church-lady, Mildred Lathbury has a copy on her bedside table.
Opium is dried latex obtained from the seed capsules of the opium poppy Papaver somniferum. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid morphine, which is processed chemically to produce heroin and other synthetic opioids for medicinal use and for the illegal drug trade. The latex also contains the closely related opiates codeine and thebaine, and non-analgesic alkaloids such as papaverine and noscapine. The traditional, labor-intensive method of obtaining the latex is to scratch ("score") the immature seed pods (fruits) by hand; the latex leaks out and dries to a sticky yellowish residue that is later scraped off and dehydrated. The word meconium historically referred to related, weaker preparations made from other parts of the opium poppy or different species of poppies.
Sir William Osler, 1st Baronet, was a Canadian physician and one of the "Big Four" founding professors of Johns Hopkins Hospital. Osler created the first residency program for specialty training of physicians, and he was the first to bring medical students out of the lecture hall for bedside clinical training. He has frequently been described as the Father of Modern Medicine and one of the "greatest diagnosticians ever to wield a stethoscope". In addition to being a physician he was a bibliophile, historian, author, and renowned practical joker. He was passionate about medical libraries and medical history, having founded the History of Medicine Society, at the Royal Society of Medicine, London. He was also instrumental in founding the Medical Library Association of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Association of Medical Librarians along with three other people, including Margaret Charlton, the medical librarian of his alma mater, McGill University. He left his own large history of medicine library to McGill, where it became the Osler Library.
Thomas Penson De Quincey was an English writer, essayist, and literary critic, best known for his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821). Many scholars suggest that in publishing this work De Quincey inaugurated the tradition of addiction literature in the West.
Sir Thomas Browne was an English polymath and author of varied works which reveal his wide learning in diverse fields including science and medicine, religion and the esoteric. His writings display a deep curiosity towards the natural world, influenced by the Scientific Revolution of Baconian enquiry and are permeated by references to Classical and Biblical sources as well as the idiosyncrasies of his own personality. Although often described as suffused with melancholia, Browne's writings are also characterised by wit and subtle humour, while his literary style is varied, according to genre, resulting in a rich, unique prose which ranges from rough notebook observations to polished Baroque eloquence.
The Osler Library, a branch of the McGill University Library and part of ROAAr since 2016, is Canada's foremost scholarly resource for the history of medicine, and one of the most important libraries of its type in North America. It is located in the McIntyre Medical Sciences Building in Montreal.
Jacob Spon was a French doctor and archaeologist, was a pioneer in the exploration of the monuments of Greece, and a scholar of international reputation in the developing "Republic of Letters".
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821) is an autobiographical account written by Thomas De Quincey, about his laudanum addiction and its effect on his life. The Confessions was "the first major work De Quincey published and the one that won him fame almost overnight".
Robert J. H. Morrison is a Canadian author, editor, and academic. He is British Academy Global Professor at Bath Spa University and Queen's National Scholar at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario. A scholar of late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature and culture, he is particularly interested in the Regency years (1811–1820), Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Jane Austen, and Thomas De Quincey.
The Bury St Edmunds witch trials were a series of trials conducted intermittently between the years 1599 and 1694 in the town of Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, England.
Confessions of an Opium Eater also known as Souls for Sale and Evils of Chinatown is a 1962 American crime film produced and directed by Albert Zugsmith. It is loosely based on the 1821 autobiographical novel Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, written by Thomas De Quincey. After circulating for years as a bootleg, it was released on DVD as part of the Warner Archive Collection in 2012.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, critic, and philosopher who consumed opium to address his health issues. His use of opium in his home country of England, as well as Sicily and Malta, is extensively documented. Coleridge's opium use led to severe consequences. Coupled with his health conditions, it harmed his life and adversely impacted his career.
Suspiria de profundis is a collection of essays in the form of prose poems by English writer Thomas De Quincey, first published in 1845. An examination of the process of memory as influenced by hallucinogenic drug use, Suspiria has been described as one of the best-known and most distinctive literary works of its era.
The Castle of Indolence is a poem written by James Thomson, a Scottish poet of the 18th century, in 1748.
Opium and Romanticism are well-connected subjects, as readers of Romantic poetry often come into contact with literary criticisms about the influence of opium on its works. The idea that opium has had a direct effect on works of romantic poetry is still under debate; however, the literary criticism that has emerged throughout the years suggests very compelling ideas about opium and its impact on Romantic texts. Usually these criticisms tend to focus on poets such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas De Quincey and George Crabbe.
Autobiographic Sketches, sometimes referred to as the Autobiography of Thomas De Quincey, is a work first published in 1853.
This is a bibliography of works by Thomas De Quincey, a romantic English writer. Chiefly remembered today for his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821), De Quincey's oeuvre includes literary criticism, poetry, and a large selection of reviews, translations and journalism. His private correspondence and diary have also been published.
Philosophy of psychedelics is the philosophical investigation of the psychedelic experience. While psychedelic, entheogenic or hallucinogenic substances have been used by many traditional cultures throughout history mostly for religious purposes, recorded philosophical speculation and analysis of these substances, their phenomenological effects and the relevance of these altered states of consciousness to philosophical questions is a relatively late phenomenon in the history of philosophy. Traditional cultures who use psychedelic substances such as the Amazonian and Indigenous Mexican peoples hold that ingesting medicinal plants such as Ayahuasca and Peyote allows one to commune with the beings of the spirit world.
Lady Dorothy Browne and Sir Thomas Browne is an oil on panel painting attributed to the English artist Joan Carlile, and probably completed between 1641 and 1650. The painting depicts English physician Thomas Browne and his wife Dorothy.
Advice to a Son is a 1656 anti-matrimony book by the English essayist Francis Osborne. This was his primary effort, published in two halves in 1656 and 1658 respectively. The first half had five topical sections: "Studies", "Love and Marriage", "Travel", "Government", and "Religion". Despite being published anonymously at first, the book received major traction in the era following the English Restoration.
do not recollect more than one thing said adequately.
Religio Medici public domain audiobook at LibriVox