Julia Barrier
History 311
Professor Koscack
21 November 2020
The Medical Field in Early Modern Europe
Over the course of the semester, we have studied the early modern period of Europe and women’s roles in said period. This has shown the ability of men to marginalize and suppress women. In doing so, women have suffered. One of the more interesting ways men have done this is through their understanding or lack thereof of women’s bodies. The question in which I would like to propose is how did men understand the bodies of women? How did this understanding, or again, lack thereof affect women? Furthermore, did men have the resources to correctly understand the bodies of women, or was science simply not up to the standards that it would have taken to correctly understand the body. There is also the fact that women played a role in medicinal practices. Women did create recipe books in early modern Europe, and this was a way for them to contribute to society and take part in medical practices. The recipe books even become a part of English culture especially among women. However, women were also able to work in the medical field in terms of working as a wet nurse, herbalist, or a midwife (1) (2).
One way in which the women in early modern society within Europe were not understood physically was through their womb. One essay states, “Hysteria (was) a disease caused by the womb restricting the function of the brain either by wandering from its natural place within the body or by producing noxious humors from retained seed or meses. A woman with this affliction lost her senses, typically appearing dead, having fits or howling. These were the same symptoms as demonic possession, and practitioners who could not cure the disease through natural remedies often concluded that the patient was bewitched and could only be healed through prayer and fasting, actions which expelled demons from the body. Remedies for the hysterical woman variously attempted to return her womb to the correct location through coercion (tying down the woman), attraction (placing sweet-smelling herbs between her legs), or the expulsion of the retained blood and seed (bloodletting, orgasm).” (3) The quotation shows very clearly the way that doctors handled the female body. The selected lines above from the article entitled “The Routledge History of Sex and the Body: 1500-The Present,” show that men did not value female bodies, or at the very least, value an understanding of female bodies. The lines form the selected excerpt state, “ practitioners who could not cure the disease through natural remedies often concluded that the patient was bewitched”. The disease in which women would sometimes become afflicted with in their womb had some of the same symptoms as demonic possession, and the quotation shows that if the doctors could not treat the disease easily which would have been through the very simple remedies that they had concocted, then they would not continue to treat the women. It is also important to note how violent the treatment methods were when the simple remedies did not work on the women. One prime example of this is the tying down of a woman. This is a very violent and traumatizing way of determining whether or not she is being possessed by demons. It is also noteworthy to consider the trauma that women were met with. They were being treated by male doctors who did not bother to learn or understand the female body. This would have been difficult considering they were also often villainized by those doctors. Since the doctors were unaware of what was wrong with the women they were treating, which was mostly to blame for the fact that they did not understand female bodies, the doctors often blamed things such as witchcraft or being possessed by the devil as the article states above. But these accusations would villainize women in society. The other people in society would likely fear them and their families, and this would further separate them from the society. This was very problematic because it alienated women from the society they were a part of (3).
Although this was not shown in very much detail in class, there were also women who matriculated into the medical field in early modern Europe. Women were able to work as wet nurses and midwives (4). A wet nurse was directly employed by a family who has just given birth to a child (5). If a mother does not want to care for their child physically such as nursing it, a wet nurse can be hired and used to help with the child. A midwife was a sort of nurse who worked with doctors and helped women as caretakers in the time leading up to birth and then for a time after childbirth (6). Midwives helped new mothers and soon-to-be mothers to care for their children and they were very helpful at giving children the proper environment to grow in. There was also the idea that women worked in medicine because it was a job which was connected to children. Women, in early modern Europe especially, were expected to eventually become mothers. In doing this, they would forever be connected to children, so it would make sense that women would work in the field within the medicinal field itself that helped and cared for children. There was also the possibility that women could work as healers within this time period, especially in England. This does sort of stem from the same vein that women in domestic science related to. Women were working in domestic science as a result of how experienced and skilled they were in the kitchen. Women being skilled in the kitchen would also help them to work in the healing field, because they could come up with concoctions to help heal people. The mixing of herbs and other goods in order to form remedies is very similar to cooking. Women were not, however, allowed to have “formal education,” and this limited their ability to work in the medical industry (1).
One of the ways that women were able to record their medical knowledge was through recipe books. The books were especially popular in early modern England. A reason for this was possibly the fact that more people in England were able to read and even women were able to read. Having a bigger literacy rate, also leads one to assume that there was an increased education rate which means that was a larger value which was placed on the accumulation of knowledge. This accumulation of knowledge, especially on the part of women, did lead to recipe books. Recipes could also be passed down between family members within “reach” of other women in the smaller towns in England which they lived in. One example of a woman who wrote medical recipe books in this time was Johanna St. John who was born in 1631 and was able to publish multiple recipe books over the course of her life. Recipe books were obviously very important to her, and one example of this would be the fact that she even made room in her will for two of her most important recipe books, which also shows the culture of England and the prominent role that recipe books played in early modern Europe (7). Johanna St. John created recipe books with various medicinal recipes to cure diseases found among people, and one of her recipe books shows how to cure a person who has been with a dog with rabies. It is sort of a rabies vaccine and it discusses using crab claws and mixing them with another ingredient into a powder (8).
Sydney Humphryes also wrote a recipe book that showcased both cooking and baking as well as medicine. She showcased recipes for healing ailments in children. This is another example of how women could become more involved (9). J. Sharp also wrote recipe books. Her recipe books show more ways of helping animals and natural remedies and recipes. One example would be a recipe for helping maintain birds who are feathering. This shows how different the recipes could be, yet they still were medicinal (9).
It is especially interesting to also consider what became of these recipe books as people traveled across the Atlantic in order to colonize the New World. Some of these recipe books and “how to” books, some of which were created by women, have been found on ships or with people who traveled to America via boat. This goes to show how important these recipe books became, not only for women, but also for society as a whole within early modern Europe. They were obviously important enough for women and men to decide to take them among their limited belongings which traveled to America with them. This means that the recipe books were, in fact, valuable to society. It is also important to even further emphasize that it was women who made these discoveries. In early modern Europe, women were not understood as seen in the previous paragraphs on doctors, and because of this, women were not valued in the same way that men were. Despite all of the “lack of faith” if you will, on the part of men, women were still able to make these discoveries, and even decided to share them with society despite the fact that they were constantly downgraded (10).
Therefore, the medicinal practices of early modern Europe, particularly in England are vastly different. Men who practiced medicine often abused and mistreated the women who they were supposed to be helping medically. One can also reasonably assume that this poor treatment of women took a toll on their mental health and view of their own bodies. Women being viewed as being possessed by demons for having normal bodily functions would have caused them to question their own sanity, because they were diagnosed by a medical professional. It is also fair to assume that these women were removed from their communities because the people in their various towns were afraid of the possibility that they were possessed by demons. This also would have caused problems for the mental health of these women, because it would have isolated them from society. Women, however, were also able to partake in medicine. They worked in various jobs which allowed them to become more involved in medicine, and the major way in which women were involved in medicine, however, was through the writing of recipe books. Women were able to use their knowledge of common cooking techniques and adopt them into recipes which helped heal people. These recipe books became staples of English culture in the early modern European countries, which is sensical considering these recipe books were very helpful and even found some cures that present doctors have modified and still use today. Johanna St. John was a prominent figure in this time period who created recipes for medicine which helped find a cure for diseases. Overall the difference between men and women who work in the medical fields are starking. Men were given far more opportunities for success than women were, seeing as they received better education which allowed them to become doctors who were able to treat women. Despite the fact that women were given fewer opportunities they were still able to take on a role in the medical field and have a lasting impact on medical discoveries (1) (2) (3) (9).
Footnotes:
(1) Early Modern Women in Medicine. Accessed November 24, 2020. https://departments.kings.edu/womens_history/emmedicine.html.
(2) Johanna St. John.” Manuscript Cookbooks Survey. Accessed November 24, 2020. https://www.manuscriptcookbookssurvey.org/tag/johanna-st-john/.
(3) Toulalan, Sarah, and Kate Fisher. “The Routledge History of Sex and the Body: 1500-The Present,” n.d. https://www.people.hps.cam.ac.uk/index/teaching-officers/kassell/medical-understandings.
(4) Early Modern Women in Medicine. Accessed November 24, 2020. https://departments.kings.edu/womens_history/emmedicine.html.
(5) “Wet Nurse.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, November 18, 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet_nurse.
(6) Todd, Nivin. “What Is a Midwife?” WebMD. WebMD, June 21, 2020. https://www.webmd.com/baby/what-is-a-midwife-twins.
(7) “Johanna St. John.” Manuscript Cookbooks Survey. Accessed November 24, 2020. https://www.manuscriptcookbookssurvey.org/tag/johanna-st-john/.
(8) St. John, Johanna. Johanna St. John: Her Book, n.d.
(9) Dawe-Woodings, Ginny. “The Great History Bake Off: Baking and Medicine in Early Modern Recipe Books.” Royal College of Surgeons. Royal College of Surgeons, May 13, 2019. https://www.rcseng.ac.uk/library-and-publications/library/blog/great-history-bake-off/.
(10) Mylander, Jennifer. "Early Modern "How-To" Books: Impractical Manuals and the Construction of Englishness in the Atlantic World." Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies 9, no. 1 (2009): 123-46. Accessed December 7, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40339613.