A Letter to a Friend
A Letter to a Friend (written 1656; published posthumously in 1690), by Sir Thomas Browne, the 17th century English philosopher and physician, is a medical treatise of case-histories and witty speculations upon the human condition. PublicationThe Letter was first published as a folio pamphlet in 1690, after having been left out of the 1686 posthumous collection of Browne's complete works. Few copies of this pamphlet are extant; several of those which have survived did so because they were bound as an addition to his complete works.[1] It was then included in his 1712 Poshumous Works printed by Edmund Curll, and a 1716 collection titled Christian Morals edited by John Jeffrey.[1][2] MorgellonsBrowne's pamphlet is the source of a term Mary Leitao coined in 2001 to describe her son's skin condition. She chose the name "Morgellons disease" based on a skin condition described by Browne in Letter to a Friend,[3] thus:
There is, however, no suggestion that the symptoms described by Browne are linked to the alleged modern cases of Morgellons.[5] In 1935, Charles Ernest Kellett MD FRCP (1903–1978), who lectured in the history of medicine at the University of Newcastle medical school,[6] wrote a detailed criticism of Browne's Morgellons reference.[7] References
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