Maladies and Medicine: Exploring Health and Healing, 1540-1740 (Pen & Sword Books)

by Jennifer Evans and Sara Read

Today people rely on the NHS to provide health care and treatments when they are unwell. But what did people do centuries before the welfare state? Join us to celebrate the release of a richly researched new book exploring how ordinary people coped with a range of diseases in the turbulent times of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Before anaesthesia, antiseptics and antibiotics, physicians bled their patients and administered laxatives in a bid to restore the body’s natural balance, and surgery was dangerous and a potentially fatal intervention.

Book Launch 9 August 2017, Loughborough University in London (Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park) from 5:30 pm

Meet the authors and pick up your signed copy at a special launch event discounted price

To book your place please go to our Eventbrite page and use the password: Earthworms

Maladies and Medicine offers a lively exploration of health and medical cures in early modern England. Case studies and personal anecdotes taken from doctors’ notes, personal journals, diaries, letters and even court records show the reactions of individuals to their illnesses and treatments, bringing the reader into close proximity with people who lived around 400 years ago. This fascinating and richly illustrated study will appeal to anyone curious about the history of the body and the way our ancestors lived.

The book can be pre-ordered from Pen and Sword Books and a range of other retail outlets. The book will be published on 31 July 2017

To contact the authors please use the contact form on this website