William Thomas Fernie

William Thomas Fernie was an English physician and writer on popular medicine active in the late Victorian and Edwardian period. A member of the Royal College of Physicians, he published a series of books aimed at general readers that combined medical knowledge with folklore and the history of remedies, among them Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure, first issued in 1895 and often reprinted, Kitchen Physic, Meals Medicinal and Precious Stones for Curative Wear. Herbal Simples, an alphabetical dictionary of British medicinal plants and their traditional uses, remains the work for which he is remembered.