John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, was one of the most celebrated Englishmen of the eighteenth century. He spent years travelling the country, speaking in fields and town squares and preaching his distinctive version of Protestantism, one which stressed personal holiness, charity and asceticism – though without any of the puritanical excesses of Calvinism. One biographer estimates that Wesley travelled … Read more
Category: Unusual treatments
The electric spectacles
Exciting news from the world of medical technology was reported in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal in 1850. The following announcement was a late example of the mania for galvanic (i.e., electrical) medicine which began in the eighteenth century. For many decades, after the investigation of electrical phenomena began in earnest, electric current was believed to be a panacea … Read more
Medicinal pancakes
It being Shrove Tuesday, I thought I’d write a short post about pancakes. Not how to make them, or the reasons for eating them today, but their little-known nineteenth-century medical uses. Yes, really.
Oddly, the pancake enjoyed a short-lived vogue in the world of gynaecology and obstetrics. Why it should have been particularly associated with female reproductive disorders is anybody’s … Read more
Benjamin Rush in The Lancet
Physician, chemist, writer and revolutionary: Benjamin Rush (1746-1813) was a remarkable man in a remarkable age. Arguably the greatest physician America had yet produced, he was an early and tireless advocate for vaccination, an authority on epidemic disease and wrote the first American textbook on mental health. He was also controversial: during a dreadful outbreak of yellow fever in Philadelphia … Read more
Sober up the nineteenth-century way
As Christmas celebrations fade away and battered livers dubiously await the assault of New Year’s Eve, now is a good time to consider one of medicine’s oldest questions: how to counteract the effects of alcohol. Nineteenth-century medical writers seem to have been more concerned with prevention than cure: journal articles say little about curing a hangover, but contain several methods … Read more
All hail the strawberry
A number of fruits and vegetables which are part of our regular diet were more prized in past centuries for their medicinal qualities. The strawberry is one of the gastronomic highlights of the British summer, but until the early 19th century the fruit was just as much cherished for its varied therapeutic uses. One Anglo-Saxon medical text contains this … Read more
Bleeding you well
More from Lorenz Heister’s surgical textbook Chirurgie, published in 1718, on which I have written before. The practice of bloodletting, also known as phlebotomy, was a staple treatment for millennia and still had influential advocates at the end of the nineteenth century. Most people will be aware that doctors used to bleed their patients, but fewer will be … Read more
In praise of temperance
It seems appropriate on a Friday to share this warning about the dangers of binge drinking, from William Buchan’s Domestic Medicine. Published in 1808, and aimed at the patient rather than the doctor, this book offers advice on treating the commonest ailments, as well as such matters as clothing, diet and personal hygiene.
Dr Buchan was evidently no fan … Read more
The eye-brush
Scarification is a medical practice which was popular until the early nineteenth century and which thankfully has now been consigned to the history books (and blogs). In concept similar to – but less dramatic than – bleeding, it entailed using a rough implement or blade to make abrasions on the surface of the body. In theory it allowed the evacuation … Read more
Medicine or marinade?
Early nineteenth-century doctors had some funny ideas about treating infectious disease. Before the discovery of microbes, next to nothing was known about what caused infections, or how to cure them. For many years, physicians believed that stimulating the outer surfaces of the body would have an effect. Several methods of doing so were employed: cupping, in which partially-evacuated glasses were … Read more