A Letter to a Friend
{{short description|Letter by Thomas Browne}}
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| name = A Letter to a Friend
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| author = Sir Thomas Browne
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| country = Kingdom of England
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| subject = Medicine
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| pub_date = 1690
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| dewey = 826
| congress = PR3327
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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.
Morgellons
It is believed to be the source of a term Mary Leitao found in 2001 to describe her son's skin condition. She chose the name "Morgellons disease" from a skin condition described by Browne in Letter to a Friend,"The Major Works of Sir Thomas Browne", edited and with an Introduction by C. A. Partides. Penguin 1977 thus:
{{Blockquote|Hairs which have most amused me have not been in the Face or Head, but on the Back, and not in Men but Children, as I long ago observed in that endemial Distemper33 of little Children in Languedock, called the Morgellons, wherein they critically break out with harsh Hairs on their Backs, which takes off the Unquiet Symptomes of the Disease, and delivers them from Coughs and Convulsions34.{{Cite web|url=http://penelope.uchicago.edu/letter/letter.html|title=Sir Thomas Browne's A Letter to a Friend|website=penelope.uchicago.edu|access-date=2019-04-21}}}}
There is, however, no suggestion that the symptoms described by Browne are linked to the alleged modern cases of Morgellons.{{cite journal |last1=Ferreira |first1=Bárbara Roque |last2=Roccia |first2=Maria Grazia |last3=Cardoso |first3=José Carlos |last4=França |first4=Katlein |last5=Wollina |first5=Uwe |last6=Lotti |first6=Torello |last7=Fioranelli |first7=Massimo |title=History of Morgellons disease: the same name for different psychodermatologic diseases? |journal=Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift |date=October 2017 |volume=167 |issue=S1 |pages=49–51 |doi=10.1007/s10354-017-0552-8|pmid=28299553 }}
In 1935, Charles Ernest Kellett MD FRCP (1903–1978), who lectured in the history of medicine at the University of Newcastle medical school,{{cite journal |title=OBITUARY |journal=British Medical Journal |date=28 October 1978 |volume=2 |issue=6146 |pages=1234–1235 |doi=10.1136/bmj.2.6146.1234 |pmc=1608351 }} wrote a detailed criticism of Browne's Morgellons reference.{{Cite web|url=http://penelope.uchicago.edu/letter/kellett.html|title=The Morgellons|website=penelope.uchicago.edu|access-date=2019-04-21}}
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
{{wikisource|A Letter to a Friend|A Letter to a Friend}}
- [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/letter/letter.html Full text with comments]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Letter to a Friend, A}}
Category:1656 non-fiction books
Category:1690 non-fiction books
Category:17th century in medicine
Category:Works by Thomas Browne
Category:Books published posthumously
Category:Delusional parasitosis
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