By We are very pleased to announce that our new book – coming July 2017 – is now available to pre-order from a range of retail outlets! Maladies and Medicine: Exploring Health and Healing 1540-1740 (Pen and Sword Press) Maladies and Medicine: Exploring Health and Healing, 1540-1740 offers a lively exploration of
Pancake Plasters
Each year on Shrove Tuesday Facebook and Twitter abound with people posting picture of their perfect pancakes. Several historical twitter feeds share images of early modern pancake recipes. The London Metropolitan Archives tweeted a recipe attributed to Lady Barrington, made of 3 pints of milk, 10 eggs (only 5 whites),
By Anne Taylor’s Stones
This week’s post discusses the case of 20-year-old Anne Taylor, who worked as a servant to a brewer named Sikes, in Romford, Essex. Anne was treated by chemical physician George Thompson (1619-1676) in February 1655. We last met Thompson in this post. Thompson added an appendix to his 1665 book Galeno-pale:
Prayers for Cures at the Baths
Going to a spa town to take in the healing waters was a well-trodden path for patients in early modernity for a range of illnesses. Throughout the period doctors including the famous Thomas Sydenham, styled as the English Hippocrates, promoted the use of healing spas. Yorkshire gentlewoman Alice Thornton spent
Fumigating for Health
The Therapies Series In our therapies series we have looked at cupping, bloodletting, pessaries and trepanning. In this post we are going to take a look at another early modern therapeutic method – the use of fumes and smells. Smells were very important in understandings of early modern health. Scent