Letter 1131

Browne is traveling to Jamaica soon and would very much like a copy of Sloane’s ‘Natural History of Jamaica’. He cannot afford it himself, but offers one of Mayerne’s works in exchange. He hopes Sloane will do him the favour of accepting the trade even though Browne is a stranger to him. Joseph Browne (bap.1673 d. in or after 1721) was a physician and satirist known as a ‘notorious quack’. He graduated from Jesus College Cambridge in 1694 with MB and assumed the title MD, though it is not sure from which college. Browne practiced as a physician in Yorkshire and published satirical works that got him accused of libelling Queen Anne’s Administration. He clashed with the College of Physicians and lectured against William Hervey’s theory of the Circulation of Blood. However, Browne did translate significant medical works to English. (D. D. Gibbs, “Browne, Joseph (bap. 1673, d. in or after 17210”, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography).