Dr Simon Forman: a Most Notorious Physician

by Judith Cook

Simon Forman rose to wealth and fame in Elizabethan London as doctor to the giants of the Elizabethan theatre. He was also an astrologer and schemer - and perhaps a spy. His "playbook" contains the first eye-witness accounts of plays at the Rose and Globe theatres. This lively account of his charismatic and ambitious personality comes from the intimate diary he kept, detailing his law cases, his battles with the establishment and his active sex life - a record of promiscuity as vivid as Pepys or Boswell.

Genres: History, Biography, Nonfiction

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Judith Cook was a lecturer in theatre at the University of Exeter. She wrote several mysteries based on the casebooks of Dr Simon Forman, an Elizabethan doctor and astrologer.

Reviews

[Paul Lawrence]

A great companion to a book like William Lilly's Christian Anthology. Christian Anthology gives you an insight into the 'what' ... what exactly was it that astrologers did in the 16th & 17th centuries? Pretty much what astrologers do today as it turns out, in terms of the techniques and practice. Dr Simon Forman (a most notorious physician!) gives you more insight into the 'how' ... how did a man go about earning a living as an astrologer in Elizabethan England? And you couldn't pick a more colourful character around whom to illustrate such a history According to Judith Cook, Forman was a fantasist, in contrast to his sombre serious public persona, who invented his family history to include Lords and links to Scottish royalty. Determined to become a medical practitioner, though lacking the means to gain the qualifications required to ease his passgae through the stringent criteria applied by the College of Physicians, he chose as mentor an astrologer. Francis Cox also practised necromancy and magic, and was reputed to be a charlatan, an unwise choice perhaps. Forman persevered and set up a thriving practice. But time and time again he was arrested or fined, for practising with a licence. He moved to London, to escape his principal persecutor - one Giles Estcourt - and proceeded to have lots of adventures with the rich and famous (and not so rich and famous). It was in London he lost his virginity at the ripe old age of 29, upon which he set about making up for lost time with great fortitude and enthusiasm. Dr Simon Forman tells both the story of a extraordinary individual and the history of medical practice in the Elizabethan age. It is written in a light engaging style and is a pleasure to read, being one of my sources for 'A Plague of Sinners', in which appears the astrologer Owen Price.

[Adam Stevenson]

’Simon Forman: A Most Notorious Physician’ is written by Judith Cook who wrote a book I very much enjoyed about the community of writers in the 17th century called ‘Roaring Boys’.

Simon Foreman was a physician in the late 17th century who practiced despite not having all the official training and none of the official paperwork. He focused largely on astrological/humoral causes of illness and largely proscribed changes in lifestyle, diet and various concoctions of herbs (though sometimes it could become a little more peculiar, like burnt dog mess). He also slept with many of his patients, even after he had married. We know all this because he kept a diary and detailed case notes.

There are definite links between the worlds of players and Dr Forman. Both lived and worked south of the Thames, where they were safe from much of interference from the City of London. Not only that, but Forman had many theatrical people in his casebooks, from actors, managers and even the woman who (some, like Rowe) propose to be Shakespeare’s dark lady.

What the book succeeds in doing, is paint a picture of the world and something of the character of Forman himself.

Simon Forman is not portrayed simply as a cynical hack but an optimistic man with a fierce desire for knowledge. He fought for knowledge his whole life, being constantly turned away from it by life. Everything he learns, he does it by determined effort. That a lot of his knowledge seems silly to us now, lessons of astrology and humoral theory, is irrelevant, in an age where Queen Elizabeth would consult Dr Dee, he mastered what there was to know. Not only that, the extensive use of documenting, the many casebooks and the written additions he made in the books he read, means that he at least tried to systematise his knowledge and rely on what worked for him. We can pick out the funny cures but a lot of what he proscribed was common sense or at the very least not harmful in itself.

Despite all this, Forman is not an angel. He is vain (as someone who wrote so much about himself has to be), he was fond of showing off, he could treat his closest relationships with an unusual coldness and he slept around.. a lot. The codeword he used for this was ‘halek’. There is a lot of haleking going on in this book, even after he was married. In some ways, he reminds me of Samuel Pepys who came about fifty years after. Both men had a drive to know, both had full social lives, both had irresponsible (and sometimes just cruel) sexual lives and both recorded themselves voraciously. Forman wrote that a man was beyond old age when he hit his 50s, with such a short lifespan, a lust for life seems a noble thing.

Although the book was concise, well written and full of interesting detail, there was a feeling that in relying on the diaries so much, it becomes a little monotonous. Even diaries by the best diarists are a bit of a slog as reading a life in that form feels like one thing after another, I’d have liked a little more shaping in the telling.

All that aside, this was a fantastic book and I recommend anyone to find out a little bit more about this fascinating individual in whatever way they can.

[Mandy weston]

Simon Foreman was a 'quack' doctor living in London during Shakespeare's time. Although constantly being arrested and penalised by the authorities for his unorthodox practices, (which is quite amusing given how primitive 'normal' Elizabethan medicine was), he believed in what he did and always managed to claw his way back. He eventually became a successful and famous physician with a large clientele of often well-known people, including one of the players in Shakespeare's company of actors, so he would undoubtedly have known the bard himself. Foreman kept extensive and detailed notes and records about all his patients, as well as many journals. The journals are famous for their explicit 'halek' notes, halek being a code word for sex, in which he describes his many sexual encounters, often with female patients.
A fascinating read with plenty of anecdotes about the Elizabethan court as well as everyday life in London. The mundane becomes the extraordinary to someone reading it 400 years later. Once you've read this, you'll never complain about the NHS again..

[QOH]

This is a promising, but vague, account of an Elizabethan quack who kept Pepys-like records of his philandering (and a decent diary). I picked this up because 1) I like the intersection of alchemy and the birth of "real" science and 2) in flipping through it at the store, I noted a first cousin (14 times removed) was one of Forman's patients. (I didn't learn anything new about either, unfortunately.)

The notes are inadequate (and useless, unless you can read the original material at the Ashmolean). I understand the author also wrote a novel about the man. I wish she'd taken all the extra adverbs from this book and put them there.