| A Letter to a Friend | |
| Author: | Sir Thomas Browne |
| Country: | Kingdom of England |
| Subject: | Medicine |
| Pub Date: | 1690 |
| Dewey: | 826 |
| Congress: | PR3327 |
A Letter to a Friend (written 1656; published posthumously in 1690), by Sir Thomas Browne, the 17th century philosopher and physician, is a medical treatise of case-histories and witty speculations upon the human condition.
It is believed to be the source of a term Mary Leitao found in 2001 to describe her son's skin condition. She chose the name "Morgellons disease" from a skin condition described by Browne in Letter to a Friend,[1] thus:
There is, however, no suggestion that the symptoms described by Browne are linked to the alleged modern cases of Morgellons.[2]
In 1935, Charles Ernest Kellett MD FRCP (1903–1978), who lectured in the history of medicine at the University of Newcastle medical school,[3] wrote a detailed criticism of Browne's Morgellons reference.[4]