On Superstitions Connected with the History and Practice of Medicine and Surgery

This 1844 work by the surgeon Thomas Pettigrew describes the various forms of superstition which medical science had always attracted.

Thomas Joseph Pettigrew (Author)

9781108074520, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 17 July 2014

182 pages, 1 b/w illus.
21.6 x 14 x 1.3 cm, 0.25 kg

The surgeon Thomas Pettigrew (1791–1865) was interested in all aspects of antiquity, and gained fame in London society through his mummy-unwrapping parties. (His History of Egyptian Mummies is also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection.) His interest in the early history of medicine is evidenced by this work, published in 1844, which describes the various forms of superstition which the science of medicine had always attracted since ancient times. Pettigrew considers alchemy and astrology, and the use of talismans, amulets and charms, as well as the history of Egyptian, Greek and Roman medicine, and some modern developments, including 'sympathetical cures' and the rejoining of severed fingers and ears. A chapter is devoted to the belief in the efficacy of the 'royal touch' against the King's Evil (scrofula), and another to the seventeenth-century faith healer Valentine Greatrakes, of whose alleged cures Pettigrew takes a robustly sceptical view.

Introduction
Alchymy
Astrology
Early medicine and surgery
Talismans
Amulets
Charms
The influence of the mind upon my body
Royal gift of healing
Valentine Greatrakes' cures
Sympathetical cures.

Subject Areas: History of medicine [MBX]