Knowledge and Practice in English Medicine, 1550–1680

A major synthesis of the knowledge and practice of early modern English medicine.

Andrew Wear (Author)

9780521558273, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 16 November 2000

506 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.9 cm, 0.73 kg

'Wear's scope and acumen are breathtaking: he has interwoven a staggering wealth of material into a remarkable volume that perfectly blends monographic argument with synthetic overview. In this manner, his book provides an invaluable reference for historians and historians of medicine alike, and is absolutely indispensable for specialists and students of the period.' Social History of Medicine

This is a major synthesis of the knowledge and practice of early modern English medicine in its social and cultural contexts. The book vividly maps out some central areas: remedies (and how they were made credible), notions of disease, advice on preventive medicine and on healthy living, and how surgeons worked upon the body and their understanding of what they were doing. The structures of practice and knowledge examined in the first part of the book came to be challenged in the later seventeenth century, when the 'new science' began to overturn the foundation of established knowledge. However, as the second part of the book shows, traditional medical practice was so well entrenched in English culture that much of it continued into the eighteenth century. Various changes did however occur, which set the agenda for later medical treatment and which are discussed in the final chapter.

Introduction
1. Setting the scene
2. Remedies
3. Diseases
4. Preventive medicine: healthy lifestyles and healthy environments
5. Surgery: the handwork of medicine
6. Plague and medical knowledge
7. The prevention and cure of plague
8. Conflict and revolution in medicine
9. The failure of the Helmontian revolution in the practice of medicine
10. Changes and continuities.

Subject Areas: History of science [PDX], History of medicine [MBX], Social & cultural history [HBTB], Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], British & Irish history [HBJD1]