In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • The Skilful Physician
  • Karen Reeds
Carey Balaban, Jonathon Erlen, and Richard Siderits, eds. The Skilful Physician. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1997. xxiv + 293 pp. $29.95; £20.00; ECU 25.00.

Every collection of medical recipes is a reminder that, throughout history, most people have not gone to physicians for medical help: they have turned first to their family and friends, and—with growing literacy—to self-help books. In England, the 1650s “saw a sudden outpouring of these . . . medical recipe [End Page 146] collections” (p. x), and The Skilful Physician (London, 1656) is a wonderful example. The “D. D.” who signed the preface of the anonymous compilation is generally equated with an otherwise unidentified “Dr. Deodate,” who is listed among the thirteen “most Eminent Persons whose Skil hath contributed any thing to this Book” (p. 14). Dr. Deodate gets specific credit for a honey-vinegar-mustard gargle to “purge the Braines” and for an antiscorbutic syrup of scurvy-grass, brooklime, watercress, lemon juice, orange juice, and sugar, which might indeed have helped the patient (pp. 39, 150). The other dozen authorities include “Albucenses” (p. 14), Paracelsus, seven English physicians, and two English women.

After an introduction containing “some plain useful Directions for the Preservation of thy Health” (p. 13), the compiler gives remedies arranged roughly alphabetically by disease, remedy, or organ. Eye problems take up the most space. While acknowledging that regimens must take account of individual differences (“rubbing of the Head and Neck is especially to be commended to those who have moist heads, Students, and such as are troubled with Rhumes, Palsies, &c.” [p. 11]), the compiler explicitly ignores the problem of adjusting the administration of a medicine to fit the patient’s constitution, complexion, and strength. The book jumbles together very simple cures and very complex ones. Many remedies use just two or three fresh herbs or animal products (e.g., fried angleworms) mixed with oil, wine, butter, or woman’s milk. Others, however, are compounded from even more ingredients than their counterparts in the official Pharmacopoeia Londinensis (1653). Overall, the editors observe, the book is a combination of herbalism, folklore, and common sense, with relatively little astrology or alchemy.

The editors provide a helpful introduction comparing The Skilful Physician to other popular medical books of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. Their glossary is a valuable compendium of definitions of ailments, symptoms, and body parts quoted from medical lexicons and textbooks of the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. Their arrangement of the “Table of Medicinal Ingredients” facilitates comparison to the Pharmacopoeia Londinensis, Gerard’s Herbal (1633 edition), and Culpeper’s Herbal. The index, unfortunately, is less useful: it excludes all personal names and entries in the “Table of Medicinal Ingredients,” and its entries are generally restricted to terms used in the text in their original, unpredictable spellings. The only way to find, say, Mrs. Wing’s remedy for hemorrhoids (powdered oystershells in linseed oil) is to know the synonyms emrods or piles—or to read the entire fascinating book.

Karen Reeds
National Coalition for Independent Scholars
New Providence, New Jersey
...

Share