Making Medicines in the Early Modern Household

Abstract

This article is a study of household medicine production and consumption through an examination of the papers of Elizabeth Freke (1641-1714) and a wider survey of around nine thousand medical recipes in printed and manuscript collections from seventeenth-century England. It investigates the sorts of medicines that may have been produced in early modern households and the production methods, ingredients, and equipment used. Focusing on three inventories of medicines compiled by Freke between 1710 and 1712 as well as her manuscript recipe collection and medical reading notes, I contend that she kept on hand a number of cure-alls and medicines for general weaknesses, while holding onto recipes for more-specific ailments; the recipes, in these cases, would be the "just-in-case" medicine cabinet. I also argue for a close relationship between commercial and domestic medicine, and present the idea that household practitioners purchased not only ingredients (both processed and unprocessed) and equipment, but also medical knowledge.

Review of periodical literature published in 2008

“…Reinarz examines this transformation in the career of the enlightened surgeon Thomas Tomlinson, an early provider of formal medical education. The role of Charles Maclean in challenging the exclusivity of medical knowledge is highlighted by Kelly in the context of the early nineteenth‐century contagion debates, while Leong provides a valuable study of the importance of home‐made household medicines, stressing the close relationship between professional and domestic medicinal practices. Bennett assesses the role of women in smallpox vaccination from the end of the eighteenth century, while Elliot examines the importance of medical electricity in Georgian London, focusing upon the work of Erasmus Darwin.…”

Collecting Knowledge for the Family: Recipes, Gender and Practical Knowledge in the Early Modern English Household

“…For households as spaces of natural inquiry see Cooper (), Hunter and Hutton (), Harkness (), Pennell (), Rankin () and Leong ().…”

“…Lucinda Beier's study of the Josselin family provides a good illustrative case study: Beier (). See also Leong ().…”

“…More recent works include: Wear (, ch. 2), Pennell (), Leong and Pennell () and Leong (). Studies which focus upon analyzing recipe collections as a genre of women's writing include Knoppers (); Ezell (); Field (); Spiller ().…”

‘It is caused of the womans part or of the mans part’: the role of gender in the diagnosis and treatment of sexual dysfunction in early modern England

“…6 Consequently, as Elaine Leong has suggested, the information digested by readers of printed works was put into practice within the home as part of kitchen physic. 7 To underscore the presence of this shared body of knowledge examples from domestic receipt books have also been referenced where appropriate.…”