Henry Vaughan's Medical Annotations
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One of the puzzles in the life story of the poet Henry Vaughan (1621-1695) concerns his medical career, especially the kind of medicine he professed. By examining the annotations and the marginalia in his own medical books, we can construct a more accurate portrait of him: a rural physician who practiced a form of traditional, Galenic medicine, despite his interest in the newer, Paracelsian medicine he helped to popularize through his translations. Donald R. Dickson transcribes and translates Vaughan's annotations in two of his medical books, now in the collection of the Library Company of Philadelphia. 2007 by the Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery. All rights reserved.