People of Note
Joseph Browne
Joseph Browne was baptised in 1673, and died in or after 1721; a physician and satirist, he was a younger son of Rev. Cuthbert Browne, cleric, who held livings first in Norfolk and then in Yorkshire. Joseph was born in Treeton, and baptized in Sheffield on 20 May 1673. He matriculated at Lincoln College, Oxford, on 14 October 1689; two of his brothers, John, aged fourteen, and Richmond, aged eighteen, matriculated on the same day. Another brother, Obadiah, had entered Lincoln College some years earlier. However, on 15 October 1694 Joseph Browne transferred to Jesus College, Cambridge, where he graduated MB in 1695. He practised as a physician in Rotherham, where he provided a facility for cold bathing; most of his professional activities, however, took place in London. In 1706 he was twice convicted for libelling Queen Anne's administration. The first of these occasions, when he was fined 40 marks and ordered to stand in the pillory, was for the publication of The country parson's honest advice to that judicious and worthy minister of state my lord keeper. He, later, denied the authorship of this pamphlet, and spoke of Harley as having not only treated him like a patriot, but given him friendly advice. Later, he clashed with the Royal College of Physicians but, on that occasion, neither of the presentations brought against him was successful; he is described in the college annals as a notorious quack. Browne was an industrious writer; early in his career he damaged his credibility by lecturing and writing against Harvey's theory of the circulation of the blood.
He made several important works accessible in English in translations from Latin and French. A Compleat History of Druggs Written in French by Monsieur Pomet (1712) was animportant and widely used book he translated into English. In this instance he did not reveal his identity as translator, but did so in the publication in 1721 of A Natural History of Worms, his translation of a work by Daniel Le Clerc. His Practical Treatise of the Plague (1720) has a prefatory epistle to Dr Richard Mead, and his last known publication, also on the plague, was addressed to the president and members of the Royal College of Physicians, despite their recent antagonism. Beyond the date of this publication (1721) there is no trace of him.