PRESIDENT OF THE BRITISH MEDICAL ASSOCIATION
AT WHOSE REQUEST THIS APPRECIATION WAS DELIVERED AS
THE INAUGURAL DISCOURSE
AT THE OPENING MEETING OF THE ASSOCIATION
IN ST. GILES' CATHEDRAL ON THE 26TH JULY 1898
IN GREAT GOOD-WILL AND LOVE BY
ALEXANDER WHYTE




APPRECIATION AND INTRODUCTION


The _Religio Medici_ is a universally recognised English classic. And
the _Urn-Burial_, the _Christian Morals_, and the _Letter to a Friend_
are all quite worthy to take their stand beside the _Religio Medici_. Sir
Thomas Browne made several other contributions to English literature
besides these masterpieces; but it is on the _Religio Medici_, and on
what Sir Thomas himself calls 'other pieces of affinity thereto,' that
his sure fame as a writer of noble truth and stately English most
securely rests. Sir Thomas Browne was a physician of high standing and
large practice all his days; and he was an antiquarian and scientific
writer of the foremost information and authority: but it is the
extraordinary depth and riches and imaginative sweep of his mind, and his
rare wisdom and wealth of heart, and his quite wonderful English style,
that have all combined together to seal Sir Thomas Browne with his well-
earned immortality.

Sir Thomas Browne's outward life can be told in a very few words. He was