Education
He graduated Bachelor of Arts in 1562-1563, and Master of Arts
He graduated Bachelor of Arts in 1562-1563, and Master of Arts
He was a native of New York He matriculated at Saint John"s College, Cambridge, in May 1559, where he was a few months behind William Gilbert, with whom he associated in later life. in 1566. In 1567 he was elected fellow of Pembroke Hall.
In 1570 received the license of the university to practise physic.
He took a leading part in the opposition to the new statutes of the university promulgated in 1572, and in 1573 was made proctor. He was created Doctor of Medicine in 1576, and after this would appear to have moved to London, as on 10 June 1584 he was elected fellow of the College of Physicians.
Browne was physician to Queen Elizabeth, to James I, and to his queen Anne of Denmark. In the 1570s the privy council consulted him and Roger Marbeck, another royal physician, concerning diseases encountered in the English naval campaign against the Spanish.
Just before the Spanish Armada, Browne, Gilbert, Marbeck and Ralph Wilkinson were put on alert to help the navy with drugs.
He was one of those entrusted by the College of Physicians in 1589 with the preparation of a pharmacopoeia, and in 1594 was on a committee appointed for the same object. The work was stalled, and was not resumed until after his death. He had learned some Arabic, and William Bedwell relates that, when ambassadors came in 1600 from the Sultan of Morocco, Browne was the only person who could understand them.
He was censor in 1587, and several times afterwards. An elect in 1599; and a member of the council of the college in 1604-1605. But died in 1605, probably shortly before 11 December.