The Notorious Astrological Physician of London: Works and Days of Simon
Forman by Barbara Howard Traister, University of Chicago Press,
$30, ISBN 0226811409
IF ever a character stepped straight out of a Ben Jonson comedy, surely that
was Simon Forman, by far the most notorious physician to haunt late Elizabethan
and Jacobean London. His was a practice, however, that wears a somewhat bizarre
aspect to us today, since he routinely drew upon magic and astrology, casting
horoscopes to frame his diagnoses and prognoses. Indeed, cashing in on his
renowned mastery of the occult arts, Forman’s speciality was helping clients
track…
