By A guest post by Olivia Smith Anthony Ashley Cooper’s case notes tell how, on the afternoon of 12 June 1668, his abscess was ‘opened’, following which a ‘large quantity of prurulent [sic] matter, many bags & skins came away’.[1] The process of opening (v.) is both recorded and performed by
By The Derbyshire Damsel
Martha Taylor: The Derbyshire Damsel In the late 1600s, a young woman in the Derbyshire Peak District became a celebrity for a brief time. Martha Taylor, born in February 1651, was an adolescent who had a history of ill-health starting from when she was about ten years old. She became
A dose of witchcraft
Coming down with a dose of Witchcraft -– a Halloween special Witches were a real presence in early modern lives. Many elderly women healers, as well as a range of other people, risked accusations of witchcraft. Indeed new midwives, for example, had to swear an oath that they would not