By Maladies and Medicine offers a lively exploration of health and medical cures in early modern England. The introduction sets out the background in which the body was understood, covering the theory of the four humours and the ways that male and female bodies were conceptualised. It also explains the hierarchy
Toy shop Treatments
I have always been intrigued reading 17th and 18th century newspaper advertisements for medical remedies by the locations in which these products were sold and from whom they could be purchased. Looking at the drugs advertised in almanacs Louise Hill Curth has argued that patent and proprietary drugs – those
Satisfying Satyrion
I have been catching up on Season 2 of Versailles on BBC Iplayer. (Spoiler to follow if you haven’t watched it yet). In the season opener Madame De Reynaud claims to have procured powder of Satyrion to enhance her marriage. Satyrion was a very well known aphrodisiac in the seventeenth
By A Famous Fistula
The Spanish Ambassador to James I of England suffered from an anal fistula which was common knowledge. John Reynolds’ imagined conversation between the late King Henry, Queen Anne, and Queens Mary and Elizabeth in 1624 includes the comment that Count Gondomar had the permission of King James to spend the