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Women in Early Modern England: Healthcare, Healing, and Medicine Production

This research aims to further explore women’s participation and contribution in the fields of healthcare, healing, and medicine production, especially in early modern England.

Published onApr 25, 2023
Women in Early Modern England: Healthcare, Healing, and Medicine Production
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Introduction

Early modern European women’s participation and substantial role in medicine and health care was largely undocumented and thus remained underexplored.

Depiction of female apothecaries. Early Italian Pharmacy, Italian School, 17th century; oil on canvas.

Between 1500 and 1800, women had little access to formal and systematic medical education since they “were not allowed to study medicine at universities, urban apprenticeships to surgeons and apothecaries were largely limited to boys.”1 As a result, female medical practitioners were gradually marginalized by the tendency of medical professionalization, which emphasized formal institutional medical training, various licenses, and occupation titles.2 However, despite the existence of gender imbalance, women indeed actively worked in the medical fields. Their contributions were no less impressive than those of their male counterparts on record. Fortunately, over the past three decades, a number of scholars have gradually turned their attention to women’s medical work, including but not limited to Mary Fissell, Elaine Leong, Sharon Strocchia, and Alisha Rankin. The researches of these scholars have different focuses. For example, Elaine Leong has conducted very detailed research on various aspects, such as women’s learning and reading herbals and drug experiments and testing. The emergence of these scholars made more people begin to understand the contribution of female medical practitioners. This is important because women’s contributions to medical work during that era largely laid the foundation for the development of medical technology in the following days. The opinions and research of these scholars played a crucial role in the completion of this study. In this research, by dividing women’s medical work in early modern Europe into three broad categories: health care, healing, and medicine production, I aim to further explore women’s participation and contribution in these three fields, especially in early modern England, and to demonstrate women’s further historical influence in these fields to a broader public. Correctly recognizing the contribution of the female group independent of patriarchy is the first step to breaking through the historical gender boundary.

Women in Healthcare

Women in early modern Europe actively participated in domestic healthcare by making and collecting recipes and working as midwives and wet nurses. Strocchia’s study emphasized that outside the traditional educational framework like universities and guilds, households, an important place for medical knowledge collection and practice, played a significant role in health promotion and therapeutic care.3 The tight bond between medical practices and households indirectly linked medicine and women together, since women were the subject of family life in early modern Europe, as anything with the tags of “domestic” and “household” was to be women’s destinated duty. Moreover, people at that time emphasized daily illness prevention more than subsequent therapy after the illness. This prevailing idea reflected the Galenic principles of keeping healthy: “avoiding bad air by inhaling sweet smells; regulating diet and consuming foods with health-giving properties; striking an appropriate balance between sleep and exercise.”4 Since domestic activities and people’s daily routines were attached to great importance in the process of following these principles, women’s role in health care was once again emphasized. In the early recipe books, which collected numerous recipes for both culinary and medicine, women’s efforts as healthcare providers can be seen, for instance, Lady Ayscough, whose many manuscripts of recipes were collected by Henry Wellcome, a famous pharmaceutical entrepreneur in the 19th century.5 Lady Asycough’s detailed life story as a medical recipe creator and collector remained unknown, and her portraits remained unfound, but her works have been well preserved and passed down to this day. In one of her collections, a recipe named To Make One Sleepe showed people how to deal with insomnia.

The recipe was used to help people who suffered from insomnia.

Page 216 from Wellcome Collection: Ayscough, Lady (MS1026)

Getting enough sleep was an important part of maintaining good health, so when people have trouble falling asleep, they can “take a quantity of the leaves of herb grace and take a good great nuttmegg and grate it upon a knife bruise the herb grace & mingle your Nuttmegg and herb grace together & heat it warm & putt it into 2 little bagges and lay it to the temples & then settle yourself to sleep in any state.”6 This recipe is very domestic. The ingredients used are things that people could access in their everyday life. The production process is also very simple and can be completed by anyone at home. Behind the precious solution for insomnia sufferers was the inextricable link between female and domestic activities and people’s health care. In addition to selecting and collecting medical recipes, female healthcare providers also worked as midwives and wet nurses. Though often “excluded…from many accounts of the history medicine grounded in a tripartite model of physician, surgeon, and apothecary,”7 midwives and wet nurses were indispensable sources of medical knowledge in the neighborhood.

Illustration. Midwives help a woman to give birth.

Perhaps because midwives and wet nurses were usually older women, they had a wide range of knowledge and were not just limited to caring for babies and mothers. For instance, the wet nurse employed by Sir Hugh Plat once offered him a recipe for gout, which was irrelevant to baby care.8

Women in Healing

In addition to daily health care and illness prevention, female medical practitioners facing diseases and injuries also offered many recipes for healing and therapy. In the early modern European recipe collections, it is

Lady Catherine Sedley's recipe for toothache, MS 534

common to find medical recipes and prescriptions with the names such as A Recipe for the Tooth Ache and A Medicine for the Plague. Many medical recipes can be found in Mrs. Anne Battam’s recipe collections. Mrs. Anne Battam was an English woman, who collected and then originally published the recipes in the book named The Lady's Assistant in the Oeconomy of the Table: A Collection of Scarce and Valuable Receipts. In this collection made in 1759, two versions of medical recipes for treating mad dog bites can be found: A receipt for the bite of a mad, and An infallible cure for the bite of a mad dog, brought from Tonquin.9 From these two recipes, we can see the research and experiments done by the recipe creators. The first recipe only mentions that it can be applied to cattle, while the second recipe mentions it “is calculated for a full-grown person but be given to children in small quality”10 and gives Sir George Cobb’s curing two people as an example showing the effectiveness of the recipe.

Two medical recipes with detailed dosages of ingredients were collected in Mrs. Anne Battam’s recipe collections. Both recipes could be used after being unfortunately bitten by mad dogs.

The recipe creator’s conclusion that the recipe works in cattle, it works in children, and adults must be based on numerous experiments and tests. Moreover, what makes these two recipes meaningful is that they were both made to heal the same wound. Theoretically, one recipe to cure one type of injury would be enough, but Mrs. Anne Battam included both, and it’s worth thinking about the reason behind it. The two recipes respectively emphasize that one “is good for cattle” and one had “cured two persons” and “must be given to children in smaller quantities”. These separate emphasizes are to provide different choices for people’s different needs. For example, when a cattle or perhaps other animal is bitten, one may choose to use the first recipe, and when a child is bitten, one may choose the second. Mrs. Anne Battam, as the recipe collector, was very considerate of thinking about different possible situations that people might meet. The fine division of the potential users, cattle, adult, and child, of the recipes greatly improved the operability of the two recipes. Additionally, the rigor of Mrs. Anne Battam is also reflected in the dosage recommendations. For example, “twenty-four grains of cinnabar”, “fifteen grains of musk”, and “half a pint”.11 Precise recommendations on the dosage of ingredients also made the recipe more workable. Behind these recipes, it is easy to see the effort and attitude Mrs. Anne Battam has devoted to the process of experimenting, testing, and collecting.

Women in Medicine Production

Female medical practitioners in early modern Europe not only focused on health care and healing but more importantly some of them contributed greatly to the production of various medicines.

Various kinds of liquid medicines were stored in glass bottles with tags attached. In early modern Europe, the local apothecaries, both male and female, produced medicines to help people in the neighborhood dealing with ailments.

The process of making medicine involves transferring medical knowledge and theory into medical recipes and producing medicines specifically from those recipes. Behind the medicine production was a complex process of putting theory into practice. Elizabeth Freke, born in England in 1641, was undoubtfully an iconic female figure in medicine production in early modern Europe. Elizabeth Freke was an educated woman. She was born into a wealthy Royalist family. After her mother died, Elizabeth Freke was raised by a wealthy aunt. Growing up in a privileged environment and having the opportunity to receive a better education provided her with the knowledge to become a poet, memoirist, and medical maker.12 Her remembrance, The Remembrances of Elizabeth Freke, 1671-1714, as well as other notebooks, were arguably one of the most comprehensive surviving accounts of female pharmacists and medical practitioners.13 In her remembrance, she

A relief of Lady Elizabeth Freke. This portrait was also printed on the cover of The Remembrances of Elizabeth Freke, 1671-1714.

recorded her inventories of medicines and other items before moving, so we can see exactly what medicines she made herself. In her inventory, she mentioned that in her closet she stored

“ii4 quarters of strong cordiall waters and 36 pints of cordiall waters and 56 quarts of several sorts of sirrups. In all, iff right reconed by me is i7 dosen.”14

Moreover, from the recipes of her herbal water with medical effects, such as cordiall water, rosemary water, and Hungary water, we can tell that the raw materials of these medicines were mainly herbs. In Leong’s study, she analyzed that Elizabeth Freke’s ability to use these herbs flexibly and make various kinds of medicines was due to her extensive study of the medicinal properties of herbs.15 This insight leads us to a more in-depth analysis of how female medicine makers learned about herbs before they actually get involved in medicine production. This discussion is meaningful because, as mentioned above, medicine as a professional field was gendered and women were excluded from all formal and systematic medical education. As a result, women had to work harder to match or even surpass their male counterparts in the medical field. So how did women gain knowledge about herbs? In fact, by reading the notebooks of Elizabeth Freke, scholars found that before becoming a well-known medicine maker, Freke was a devoted student of John Gerard's The Herbal or Generali History of Plants, and she accumulated a lot of knowledge about herbal medicine through careful notetaking.16 Her notebooks recorded the detailed functions and virtues of each herb.

A picture of Angelica in a book about herbs.

For instance,

Angelica, …targets poisons, the plague, and corrupt air; … open the liver and the spleen… strengthens the heart… drives out the afterbirth…Saffron…strengthens and opens the chest, removes obstructions… useful in remedies for the lungs...good for surfeits…provoke urine”. 17

At the same time, Elizabeth Freke was not a passive learner who accepted all the information in the book. The scholars found from her notes that she was selective in her learning based on her interests and practical needs, and she added revised notes to her collection.18 Freke’s self-taught knowledge of herbal medicine was striking because, as a woman, she was born to be excluded from educational institutions. Freke’s efforts and dedication to the field of medicine in the early and later stages of her career were no less than those of her male counterparts who were licensed to practice as medical professionals. In addition to the positive impact of Freke’s research on her family and patients, her notes on herbal medicine and the recipes for various drugs probably have played a role in the development of human medicine and the medical industry. Considering the gender inequality and exclusion of women in the medical profession that Elizabeth Freke had to confront at the time, her outstanding achievements as a female medicine maker were more than worthy of recognition and praise.

Woman distilling, frontispiece of The Accomplished ladies rich closet of rarities, 1691. Collected by Wellcome Library, London.

To a Larger World

Since herbs were the raw materials used by female pharmacists, how did women get them? What happened to the medicine that women made? These questions are answered in Mary Fissell’s research, which focuses on women’s participation in the market of raw materials, herbs, and the market of the finished product, medicines, and recipe books. By mentioning that “we can no longer assume that women merely plucked herbs from their gardens and made simple domestic remedies in their kitchens,” Fissell claimed that women’s medical practices were not solely small-scale and domestic, and some women actively participated in the larger market.19 To produce the medicines, women also needed to buy different ingredients like herbs. This also allowed more women to participate actively in the economy and markets through medicine production. For example, in the 1740s, a Mrs. Christian, “lived in a fairly remote part of northwest England, participated in the global economy in her consumption of a wide range of medicines made from ingredients originated in the Caribbean, Africa, and India, and from various around the Mediterranean”.20

On the other hand, substantial quantities of female-made medicine, like other patterns of consumption fitted well in the market and circulated the neighborhood as popular merchandise. Also, the recipe books of female pharmacists had also broken the limits of household products and become goods in circulation in the larger market. As Fissell points out, “In England in the 1650s, printed remedy books, clearly bearing the traces of their manuscript origins, became best-sellers”. For example, the collections of recipes were “claimed to be the product of an individual aristocratic woman's labor, as in the best-selling Elizabeth Grey, Countess of Kent's book A Choice Manual of Rare and Select Secrets, and the work of the individuals named as authors of individual recipes.”21

Mary Fissell's research and analysis raise an interesting notion that women engaged in the process of economic development and moved away from the constraints of households by participating in the larger market through medical practices. The bridge between women and the market economy was medicine production. Women who bought raw materials and sold their recipes and medicines were actively involved in the market. The relationship between women and the medical and pharmaceutical industries was complex and mutual. The participation of women in medicine production undoubtedly contributed to the development of the medical industry as a whole. Conversely, the medicine production and medical industry as a whole also helped women break the restriction of the “household” tag, diversified women’s social roles and gender roles, and enabled women to see a larger world outside the limitation of domestic work.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this research highlights the significant role that women played in medicine-making and healthcare in early modern Europe. Despite facing social, economic, and gender barriers, women made crucial contributions to these fields, which should not be underestimated. Their expertise in medicinal practices and medicine production techniques was as important as that of their male counterparts. As we continue to explore the history of medicine, it is essential to acknowledge the outstanding contributions of women in the field and recognize their importance in shaping the practice of medicine and healthcare today.

Bibliography

  1. Mary E. Fissell, “Introduction: Women, Health, and Healing in Early Modern Europe,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 82, no. 1 (2008)

  2. Merry E. Wiesner, Women and Gender in Early Modem Europe (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993)

  3. Sharon T. Strocchia, “Women and Healthcare in Early Modern Europe,” Renaissance Studies 28, no. 4 (May 2014)

  4. Frances Larson, An Infinity of Things. How Sir Henry Wellcome Collected the World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009)

  5. Anne Battam, The lady's assistant in the economy of the table: a collection of scarce and valuable receipts, 2nd ed (London: printed for R. and J. Dodsley, in Pall-Mall, 1759)

  6. Virginia Blain, Patricia Clements, and Isobel Grundy, The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present (London, Batsford, 1990)

  7. Elaine Leong, “Making Medicines in the Early Modern Household,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 82, no. 1 (2008)

  8. Elizabeth Freke and Raymond A. Anselment, The Remembrances of Elizabeth Freke 1671-1714 (London: Cambridge University Press, 2001)

  9. Elaine Leong, “‘Herbals She Peruseth’: Reading Medicine in Early Modern England,” Renaissance Studies 28, no. 4 (May 2014)

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