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

Barbara Howard Traister. The Notorious Astrological Physician of London: Works and Days of Simon Forman. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001. xviii + 250 pp. Ill. $30.00; £19.00 (0-226-81140-9).

The early modern London medical man Simon Forman is best known for being popularly believed to have supplied the poison used to murder Sir Thomas Overbury in the Tower of London. His sexual proclivities and occult activities have also generated much ink over the centuries. With Barbara Howard Traister's book, both the strange, enigmatic figure of Simon Forman and his copious writings finally have the biography they deserve.

Traister has chosen to piece together the life and character of Forman through a fine and complete reading of his extensive manuscripts. Forman's interests were broad: as Traister notes in her introduction, his fragmented and frequently incomplete writings covered medicine, astrology, alchemy, the theater, genealogy, giants, creation, and gardening. He also wrote one of the first autobiographies--fictional, rather than factual. In chapter 1 Traister paints a portrait of Forman as a social climber devoted to fashioning his image at every turn. In 1602 he constructed a horoscope "which combined the fact, fiction, and wish fulfillment that shaped his vision of himself and his potential" (p. 14).

Medical historians will find the book particularly intriguing in that Forman's almost daily descriptions of patient diagnosis and treatment form the earliest surviving chronological case records of an English medical practitioner. In chapter 2, Traister discusses Forman's thirty years of medical writings and practices in fascinating detail (for example, he treated Robert Burton for melancholy five times in 1597). He also had a particular interest in gynecology, delegating most of the hands-on care to local midwives. Case notes survive from the years 1596-1601, and chapter 3 continues with a detailed look at Forman's daily medical practice--the number of patients he saw, their symptoms and diagnoses, and his fees. He carefully recorded the name, place of residence, and astrological figure of each patient, partly in an attempt to avoid trickery surrounding urine samples. Forman was consulted for nonmedical problems as well as medical, ranging from questions about prospects concerning love, marriage, and money, to the safety of traveling by sea, and the best location for a new business. Women were particularly concerned with questions of trust: would a man keep his word and marry them?

The vast majority of Forman's patients were aged between sixteen and forty-nine, with about 9 percent being children. Parents sometimes consulted him to obtain just a prognosis, rather than treatment, for their offspring. He carefully recorded women's menstrual history and wrote about their disorders at length. In his readings of the creation and history of Adam and Eve, Forman found an answer to his question of why women suffered from more disorders than men: they received more "wounds" from God post-Fall. Traister's careful quantitative approach uncovers a wealth of information regarding complaints, symptoms, and treatments, and the expense of a consultation (six to nine pence) and a purge (two shillings). In some cases Forman may have accepted sexual acts with female patients as payment for consultations and medicines.

From 1594 to his death in 1611, Forman was in trouble with the College of Physicians. He was repeatedly arrested and imprisoned, fined, and released, for practicing "false" astrological medicine without a license (he failed his examination before the College, to general mirth). He was seriously interested in magic, studying books, copying manuscripts, and attempting to practice the rituals described by Pico and Ficino. Traister convincingly argues that Forman's wide circle of clients for occult remedies demonstrates the mainstream nature of such beliefs and activities.

This is a wonderful account and interpretation of a fascinating man and his beliefs and aspirations. The book will appeal to historians of medicine...