Even by the standard of the 1500s , Simon Forman was a dread MD . A make out quack in an earned run average when respected physician scantily hump what they were doing , Forman even spent time in jailhouse for his dangerous praxis .
And yet , for all that , it ’s Forman and his as disreputable protege Richard Napier who have go out a great gift to the history of medicine . The pair were astrologers , who pack down elaborated entropy about a patient ’s aesculapian condition , then treat them through deliberate reckoning of their astrological chart . While that might have not done much good for their patients , Forman and Napier ’s method had one huge benefit for posterity : they actually write down people ’s symptoms .
It seems like such a minor thing , but aesculapian records are extremely rarified even in comparatively recent time , and most that do exist do more as self - serve odes to the physician ’s vastness than any real record of the conversations between physician and patient . Forman and Napier , for all their other fault – Forman , for his part , was a have intercourse sexual predator , a monolithic narcissist , and an so-called devil worshiper , though that last bit was likely just scurrilous rumor – seemed only concerned in calculating the most accurate astrological chart . This stand for their records appear to meditate the actual consultation better than any other records from the epoch .
That ’s the hope of the University of Cambridge ’s Casebooks Project , which is digitizing all surviving records from Simon Forman and Richard Napier . Here ’s how they account their employment :
Forman record over 10,000 consultations between 1596 and 1603 . His practice session had begun at least a decade in the beginning and continued until his death in 1611 . The exist records are incomplete . In the late 1590s , Forman teach Napier his methods . Napier ’s records survive in full , from 1598 to his destruction in 1634 . These comprise roughly 40,000 consultations .
The 50,000 records in Forman ’s and Napier ’s casebook form what is believably the richest surviving solidifying of medical records from the period before 1700 . At least 90 % of the motion related to matters of health and disease . The remnant included questions about marriage , career prospect , miss persons , stolen prop , travel plans , legal causa and witchcraft .
The records involve as many as 30,000 different people of all ages and from all pass of life , with nobles and servant alike jaw the pair for their peculiar brand of medical advice . It ’s an challenging opportunity to expose a part of casual 16th century animation that otherwise would n’t easily go into the historical records . For more , check outthe Casebook Project ’s web page .
Via ScienceNOW . Top image “ Credulous peeress & astrologer ” , a colour stipple - engraving by Pierre Simon after John Raphael Smith , c. 1800 from the Wellcome Libraryvia .
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