William Butler (physician)

[1] Butler was born at Ipswich in Suffolk and matriculated as a sizar at Peterhouse, Cambridge, in 1558 (BA 1561, MA 1564, Fellow 1561).

[2] According to the 17th-century antiquary John Aubrey, he lived at an apothecary's shop at Cambridge with a servant, an "old mayd" named Nell whose job it was to fetch him home each night from a tavern.

Butler is believed to have been neither a Galenist nor a Paracelsian, but rather an "empiric" physician, who based his treatments not on any theory but purely on reasoning and experience.

[5] One begins with a reference to King Henry VIII: "Moste honest and righte honorable Thomas, in the time of Graunde Harrye that vaste and Rumbleduste Gyaunte, that had better skill of a Butcher’s axe, then of a secretaries penne, (though he once confuted Luther) it fortuned that a Laureate poëte of his Courte fell Sike and departed his life."

[10] Butler is buried in the chancel of the Church of St Mary the Great, Cambridge, where he has a monument and a Latin funerary plaque.