Denique Onirocrites, sic erit Hippocrates:Dreams as a Diagnostic Tool in Early Modern British Medicine

Abstract

On 7 July 1663, a young Edward Browne, who later will become a famous ethnographer and court physician, presented his two theses for a baccalaureate degree at Cambridge University. The title of the first thesis was entitled Judicium de somniis est medico utile (A Determination [of Illness] Based on Dreams Is Useful for the Physician). In a long series of Latin elegiac couplets infused with language and imagery drawn from classical Roman poets like Virgil, Ovid, and Persius, Browne argues that the contents of a dream directly relate to the conditions of a patient’s humors and that a wise person can diagnose the current state of an ailment on the basis of the dream’s imagery. Browne relies on three main classical and Hellenistic Greek sources: Aristotle’s works on dreams, Hippocrates’ Regimen 4 (On Dreams), and Galen’s On Diagnosis from Dreams. In this paper I discuss how Browne’s theories derive from these ancient sources, especially Galen’s text, which had appeared only two centuries earlier in the West in a Latin translation. More importantly I demonstrate how Browne’s views were consistent with current medical theory prevalent throughout England and across Europe among physicians, philosophers, and laypeople. Keywords: dreams, medicine in England, Galen, Edward Browne, Cambridge University, Artemidorus