The Notorious Astrological Physician of London: Works and Days of Simon Forman

Simon Forman is known to English history largely as a footnote to a minor drama. He figures as a presumed accomplice in the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, a courtier who fell victim to intrigue during the reign of King James and was poisoned by a potion that Forman may have concocted.

Forman would have been just the man for such a job, as Barbara Traister's biographical study amply shows. He was a renowned and sought-after physician, but he was also no Hippocrates. Instead, Forman dabbled in alchemy, astrology, black and white magic, and prophecy, and he was an accomplished herbalist. He also, it happens, learned much of what he knew about medicine by reading up on it while serving time in prison for witchcraft. Still, Forman was an apparently skillful--and apparently fearless--practitioner who remained in London during the great plague of 1592-93 while most other doctors abandoned the city, earning much respect for his steadfastness. Among his patients was Robert Burton, the author of The Anatomy of Melancholy; several members of the London nobility also consulted him, and over the years, he treated many thousands of patients, a practice that earned him a considerable fortune.

For all his forays into the occult, Forman was a diligent student of science, whose journals reveal much about the practice of medicine in early-modern Europe. Traister's book, drawing heavily on those documents, offers a glimpse into that time, and it makes a useful addition to the history of medicine. --Gregory McNamee