By Writing in his autobiography Sir Simonds D’Ewes explains that on the 22 February 1631 his father, Paul Dewes a barrister and government official, ‘fell sick of a fever, joined with a pleurisy, of which disease he lingered three weeks before he deceased, during which time I had many sad and
By Itching and Scabbiness
‘The Itch is a filthy Distemper infesting the External Parts of the Body universally, but more particularly the Joints, and between the Fingers’, wrote Thomas Spooner, author of a multi-edition treatise on the subject of ‘the itch’.1 Skin diseases and itchiness generally seem to be part and parcel of early
True English Bloodletting
A True English Bloodletting by Dr Stephen Curtis Phlebotomy (or blood-letting) is perhaps the most infamous of all early-modern medical interventions. Synonymous with an outmoded view of the body and generally accompanied by lurid descriptions of bloodthirsty doctors cutting and cupping indiscriminately, the truth is actually that there was a