A delightful foray around the brain of the 17th-century scientist and writer who coined the words ‘electricity’ and ‘hallucination’
I haven’t myself sat on Sir Thomas Browne’s brain, but it’s possible to do so. Well, more or less. If you go to Hay Hill in Norwich there is, between Topshop and Next, a more than bench-sized sculpture by Anne and Patrick Poirier of this capacious organ. It’s opposite a more orthodox statue of this great 17th-century scientist, antiquarian and prose writer, which was put up in 1905 to mark the tercentenary of Browne’s birth. Both memorials are near the site of the house in which Browne spent most of his life. This was demolished in 1842 and is now occupied by a Pret a Manger. It’s also possible to view a cast of Browne’s skull in his parish church. Hugh Aldersey-Williams has measured it (apparently it’s 14.7 cm wide) as part of his effort to get inside the head of Sir Thomas Browne.
Browne was born in London in 1605, and studied medicine at Oxford, Padua and Leiden. In 1637 he moved to Norwich, where he practised as a physician until his death in 1682. “By snatches of time, as medical vacations and the fruitless importunities of uroscopy permit”, he wrote some of the best prose in English (uroscopy is the practice of diagnosing patients from their urine). A typical Browne sentence unfurls with a majesty enriched by digression and encrusted with neologism, and often springs quizzical surprises on his readers along the way.
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