RSM logo
JRSM

Home Current issue Browse archive Alerts About the journal Feedback
 
J R Soc Med 2005;98:137-138
doi:10.1258/jrsm.98.3.137-c
© 2005 Royal Society of Medicine

This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Send a Quick Comment
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when Quick Comments are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow reprints & permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Morris, C.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati  
What's this?
J R Soc Med 2005;98:137-138
© 2005 The Royal Society of Medicine

Letters

Sir Thomas Browne's birthday

Charles Morris

Terrysfield, Downe, Orpington BR6 7JT, UK

The mistaken belief that Sir Thomas Browne was born on 19 October 1605, exactly 77 years before his death, originated in the anonymous biography preceding Browne's Posthumous Works,1 which included his musings on such a rare coincidence of dates. It gathered credence by frequent repetition, as in Professor Breathnach's appreciative memoir (January 2005, JRSM2), and has endured for nearly 300 years. Yet it should have been abandoned by now.3 Sir Thomas himself, in answer to John Aubrey's request, wrote on 24 August 1672: 'I was borne Novemb. 19, 1605'.4 There is no reason to doubt his word, which was accepted by Anthony Wood for the first biography5 and is affirmed in the recent Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.6

REFERENCES

  1. Browne T. Posthumous Works. London: E Curll & R Gosling, 1712:i -xxiii

  2. Breathnach C. Sir Thomas Browne (1605–1682). J R Soc Med 2005; 98:33 -6[Free Full Text]

  3. Morris GCR. Sir Thomas Browne's Nativity. Notes & Queries. 1983; 30: 420-1

  4. Bodleian Library. MS Aubrey:12 , f. 53

  5. Wood A. Athenae Oxonienses. London: T Bennet, 1691-2: ii,535

  6. Robbins RH, Browne, Sir Thomas. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press,2004 : 8,206 -17


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?



This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Send a Quick Comment
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when Quick Comments are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow reprints & permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Morris, C.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati  
What's this?


  RSM Press eJournals Collection 2010