Children's Physic: Medical Perceptions and Treatment of Sick Children in Early Modern England, c. 1580-1720

Abstract

Historians of medicine, childhood and paediatrics have often assumed that early modern doctors neither treated children, nor adapted their medicines to suit the peculiar temperaments of the young. Through an examination of medical textbooks and doctors' casebooks, this article refutes these assumptions. It argues that medical authors and practising doctors regularly treated children, and were careful to tailor their remedies to complement the distinctive constitutions of children. Thus, this article proposes that a concept of 'children's physic' existed in early modern England. This term refers to the notion that children were physiologically distinct, requiring special medical care. Children's physic was rooted in the ancient traditions of Hippocratic and Galenic medicine: it was the child's humoral make-up that underpinned all medical ideas about children's bodies, minds, diseases and treatments. Children abounded in the humour blood, which made them humid and weak, and in need of medicines of a particularly gentle nature.

Ungas psykiska ohälsa i medicinsk media 1970-2017

“…Tiden från 1970-talet och fram till det tidiga 2000-talet kännetecknas av en framväxande och föränderlig barn-, ungdomsvård och skola, ett mer individualiserat samhälle, ökade inkomstskillnader och social ojämlikhet (Fritzell, Gähler & Nermo 2007;Elgar et al 2015). Barns och ungas hälsa, som tidigare varit något som mest angick individen och familjen, blev under 1900-talet allt mer en samhällelig angelägenhet som knöts till välfärdsbygget, utbildningsväsendet, professionaliseringen av medicinen, staten och präglades av förändrade uppfattningar och betydelser av familj och genus (Gijswijt-Hofstra & Marland 2003;Pooley 2010;Newton 2010). En struktur för barnhälsa byggdes upp i form av institutioner som mödra-och barnhälsovård, barnbidrag, skolhälsovård, skolhälsopersonal och hälsoundersökningar.…”

Review of periodical literature published in 2010

“…The most important work in medical social history, by Newton, shows that children were understood to have distinct medicinal needs. This belief was rooted in Hippocratic and Galenic thought, with children thought to have their own balance of humours, requiring the application of especially gentle medicines, and of graduated doses according to age, size, and strength.…”

Child Patients, Hospitals and the Home in Eighteenth-Century England

“…As Newton recently observed, the historiography of the history of medicine has fallen behind the historiography of childhood (Newton 2010). This neglect means that hospitals and providers of medical care have not been integrated into the historiography of family life and community support for the eighteenth century either.…”