“A Cheap, Safe and Natural Medicine”: Religion, Medicine and Culture in John Wesley’s Primitive Physic (review)

On May 24, 1738 an Anglican priest by the name of John Wesley attended a religious service at a small London chapel on Aldersgate Street, and in the quiet of the evening, his life was completely transformed—and as they say, the rest is history. Here is how Wesley would describe what has come to be known as his “Aldersgate” experience: “In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation: And an assurance was given me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death” (W. Reginald Ward and Richard P. Heitzenrater, eds., The Works of John Wesley [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1988], 18:249–50).

The warmed heart of John Wesley would not only express itself in a spiritual revival that would sweep across eighteenth-century England and eventually the early American colonies, but would also find expression in Wesley’s concern to minister to the whole person. Deborah Madden’s “A Cheap, Safe and Natural Medicine” does a nice job in capturing the whole of Wesley’s thought—not only the theological but the medicinal.

That Wesley managed to reconcile such diverse components in such a seamless manner, without seeming to consider whether this compromised his theological convictions or threatened the foundations of his medical practice, is a remarkable and perspicacious achievement in its own right. Highlighting this maneuver is what this work under review is really all about as it seeks to demonstrate the fact that Wesley sought to combine simple traditional medicine with the best scientific discoveries of his day. Why was Wesley interested in such an idea? As Madden says, “Because healing was central to his theology” (20).

Wesley, more than anything else, was interested in the healing of the whole person. This is not the “healing” depicted in contemporary tele-vangelism with its promise of health and wealth to all who can demonstrate enough faith and just believe. Rather, Wesley’s holistic approach to healing embodies the definite theological framework of Scripture, interpreted by reason and confirmed by the testimony of human experience.

Madden reminds us that Wesley’s medical manual, Primitive Physic, fits into the broader context of his theological understanding, and it was certainly characteristic of the early Methodist movement that placed a high premium on social action as well as personal conversion. This social action was central to an active faith, pursued in the name of Christ, and totally informed by the pristine example of the early, apostolic Christians who sought to reach purity in both the physical and spiritual manifestations. Thus, the original Methodist movement was primarily a socially centered expression of classical Christianity.

It also must be mentioned that even though Wesley made a direct and simple connection between health and life, he never confused medicine and religion. This can be seen in the fact that Primitive Physic does not concern itself with supernaturalism when it comes to bodily healing. Though Wesley was not a sickly person and was rarely ill, he did suffer from some common ailments that dominated eighteenth-century life—diabetes, smallpox, and gout to name a few. Rather than seeking divine intervention for these maladies, Wesley treated them with common remedies available at the time. The reader must not miss the connection that Wesley made between hope and health. Wesley refused to believe that any disease was beyond the realm of healing. Hope, he argued, could provide strength for the mind and the body against the most negative diagnosis.

While John Wesley never depicted himself...