- Theophilus de Garencières
Theophilus de Garencières (1610-1680) [The
Royal College of Physicians suggest 1613 - 1677. [http://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/heritage/munksroll/munk_results_volume.asp?volume=I] ] was a Frenchapothecary who spent most of his life practising inEngland .Born in
Paris , Garencières studied the "Prophecies of Nostradamus " at an early age, and these had a lasting effect on him. He studied at theUniversity of Caen , which he left with aDoctorate of Medicine in 1636. To avoid religious persecution, he moved to theUniversity of Oxford during the 1640s, which finally granted him the same qualification in 1657. [A. Wear, "Knowledge and Practice in English Medicine, 1550-1680"]Garencières first came to public attention in 1647, when he claimed that
sugar was bad for the health. He believed that it had a heating quality, which could cause "Tabes Anglica" of thelung s. [ [http://www.honey-health.com/honey-8.shtml Honey Vs. Sugar] ]During the
Great Plague , Garencières claimed to have a secret cure, and that nineteen of the twenty patients he had attended had recovered. [Patrick Wallis, " [http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/economicHistory/pdf/Wallis%20-%20Plague%20Morality%20and%20Medicine.pdf Plagues, Morality and the Place of Medicine in Early Modern England] "] He wrote of his "discovery" in "A mite cast into the treasury of the famous city of London, being a brief and methodical discourse of the nature, causes, symptomes, remedies and preservation from the plague, in this calamitous year, 1665, digested into aphorismes". This book proved highly popular, seeing at least three editions inside a year. [http://lance.missouri.edu:2082/search/a?Garenci%7B225%7Deres%2C+Theophilus%2C+1610-1680 Lance Library Catalog] ]While considering himself a
Catholic , Garencières was a harsh critic ofPope Clement VIII , writing the endword to a work of 1670 entitled "The famous conclave: wherein Clement VIII was elected Pope, with the intrigues and cunning devices of that ecclesiastical assembly: faithfully translated out of an Italian manuscript found in one of the cardinals studies after his death."In 1672, Garencières was the first to translate
Nostradamus into English, creating thebilingual text "The true prophecies or prognostications of Michel Nostradamus". That year, he also wrote "The Admirable Virtues, And Wonderful Effects Of The True And Genuine Tincture Of Coral, In Physick". Soon afterwards, he metThomas Britton , with whom he shared a love of the esoteric. Britton designed him a mobilelaboratory .Garencières died in, or around, 1680. A grandson of the same name became a vicar in Scarborough, while his son, who again shared the name, was a noted apothecary in York. [Robert H. Skaife, [http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/Misc/Transcriptions/ARY/YorkMinsterMarriages3.html The Register of Marriages in York Minster, 1681 to 1762] ] [ [http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=48289 Admissions to the Freedom of York 1-15 George II (1727-42)] ]
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