Outside the hospitals employment was given to a considerable number of women in the tending of persons stricken with small-pox or the plague, and in searching corpses for signs of the plague. London constables and churchwardens were ordered in 1570 “to provide to have in readiness Women to be Provyders & Deliverers of necessaries to infected Howses, and to attend the infected Persons, and they to bear reed Wandes, so that the sick maie be kept from the whole, as nere as maie be, needful attendance weyed.”[[561]]
In the town records of Reading it is noted “at this daye Marye Jerome Wydowe was sworn to be a viewer and searcher of all the bodyes that shall dye within this boroughe, and truly to report and certifye to her knowledge of what disease they dyed, etc.; and Anne Lovejoy widowe, jurata, 4ˢ a weeke a peice, allowing iiijs. a moneth after.”[[562]] “Mary Holte was sworne to be a searcher of the dead bodyes hencefovrth dyeinge within the boroughe (being thereunto required) having iiijs. a weeke for her wages, and iiid. a corps carryeing to buryall, and iiijs. a weeke a moneth after the ceassinge of the plague.”[[563]]
In 1637 it was “agreed ... with old Frewyn and his wief, that she shall presentlye goe into the house of Henry Merrifeild and be aidinge & helpinge to the said Merrifeild and his wief, during the time of their visitacion [plague].... She shall have dyett with them, and six weekes after their visitacion ended. And old Frewin to have 2s. a week duringe all that tyme paid him, and 2s. in hand. And she shall have 2ˢ a weeke kept for her & paid her in th’end of the sixe weekes after.”[[564]] Later “it was thought fitt the Woman keeper and Merifielde’s wenche in the Pest-house, it beinge above vj weekes past since any one dyed there, should be at libertie and goe hence to her husbande’s house, she havinge done her best endevour to ayre and cleanse all the beddes & beddinge & other things in both the houses ... for her mayntenance vj weekes after the ceassinge of the sicknes, she keepinge the wenche with her, they shalbe paid 3s. a weeke for and towardes their mayntenance duringe the vj weekes.”[[565]] In 1639 the Council “Agree to geve the Widowe Lovejoye in full satisfaccion for all her paynes taken in and about the visited people in this Towne in this last visitacion xls. in money, and cloth to make her a kirtle and a wascote, and their favour towards her two sonnes-in-lawe (beinge forreynours) about their fredome.”[[566]] On a petition in 1641 from Widow Lovejoy “for better allowance & satisfaction for her paines aboute the visited people; ... it was agreed that she shall have xxxs. soe soone as the taxe for the visited people is made uppe.”[[567]]
In rural districts where hospitals were seldom within reach, entries are not infrequently found in the parish account books of payments made to women for nursing the poor. “Item. To Mother Middleton for twoe nights watchinge with Widow Coxe’s child being sick.”[[568]] “To Goody Halliday, for nursing him & his family 5 weeks £1 5; to Goody Nye, for assisting in nursing, 2s. 6d.[[569]] ... to Goody Peckham for nursing a beggar, 5s. For nursing Wickham’s boy with the small pocks 12s.”[[570]] A Hertfordshire parish paid a woman 15s. for her attendance during three weeks on a woman and her illegitimate child.[[571]] A Morton man was ordered to pay out of his next half-year’s rent for the grounds he farmed of Isabelle Squire “20s. to Margt. Squire, who attended and looked to her half a year during the time of her distraction.”[[572]]
Sometimes nurses were provided for the poor by religious and charitable ladies, who, like Letice, Viscountess Falkland, “hired nurses to serve them.”[[573]] Sick nurses were also engaged by well-to-do people to attend upon themselves or their servants. Thus the Rev. Giles Moore enters in his journal “My mayde being sicke I payd for opening her veine 4d. to the Widdow Rugglesford, for looking to her, I gave 1s. and to old Bess for tending her 3 days and 2 nights I gave 1ˢ; in all 2ˢ 4ᵈ.”[[574]] A little later, when the writer himself was “in an ague. Paid Goodwyfe Ward for being necessary to me 1s.”[[575]] Though his daughter was with him, a nurse watched in the chamber when Colonel Hutchinson died in the prison at Dover.[[576]]
A few extracts from account books will supply further details as to the usual scale of remuneration for nurses; no doubt in each case the money given was in addition to meat and drink. Sarah Fell enters “by mᵒ given Ann Daniell for her paines about Rachell Yeamans when she died 05.00.”[[577]] Timothy Burrell “pd. Gosmark for tending Mary 3 weeks 6s.”[[578]] Lady Grisell Baillie engaged a special nurse for her daughter Rachy at a fee of 5s.[[579]] At Herstmonceux Castle they “pd Hawkin’s wife for tending the sick maiden 10 days 3s. Pd. Widdow Weeks for tending sick seruants a fortnight 4s.”[[580]] Sir John Foulis in Scotland paid “to Ketherin in pᵗ paymᵗ & till account for her attendance on me the time of my sickness 12. 0. 0” [scots].[[581]] “To Katherine tueddie in compleat paymᵗ for her attendance on me wⁿ I was sick 20. 0. 0.” [scots].[[582]] “To my good douchter jennie to give tibbie tomsone for her attendance on my wife the time of her sickness 5. 16. 0. [scots].”[[583]]
All the above instances refer to professional nursing; that is to say to the tending of the sick for wages, but nursing was more often of an unprofessional character. Sickness was rife in all classes, and for the most part the sick were tended by the women of their household or family. The claim for such assistance was felt beyond the limits of kinship, and in the village community each woman would render it to her neighbour without thought of reward. The solidarity of the community was a vital tradition to the village matron of the early seventeenth century, and it was only in cases of exceptional isolation or difficulty, or where the sick person was a stranger or an outcast that the services of a paid nurse were called in. Probably the standard of efficiency was higher in domestic than in professional nursing, because professional nurses received no systematic training. Their rate of remuneration was low, the essential painfulness of their calling was not concealed by the glamour of a religious vocation, still less was it rewarded by any social distinction. Therefore the women who took up nursing for their livelihood did so from necessity, and were drawn from the lower classes.
Illness was so frequent in the seventeenth century that few girls can have reached maturity without the opportunity of practising the art of nursing at home; but amongst the “common people,” that is to say all the class of independent farmers and tradesmen, the housewife can hardly have found time to perfect her skill in nursing to a fine art. Probably the highest level was reached in the households of the gentry, where idleness was not yet the accepted hall-mark of a lady, and the mistress felt herself to be responsible for the training of her children and servants in every branch of the domestic arts, amongst which were reckoned both medicine and nursing.
B. Surgery and Medicine.
The position held by mediæval women in the arts of healing is shown in such books as Mallory’s “Morte d’Arthur.” When wounds proved intractable to the treatment of the rough and ready surgeons who attended in the vicinity of tourneys, knights sought help from some high-born lady renowned for her skill in medicine. It is true that popular belief assigned her success to witchcraft rather than to the knowledge and understanding acquired by diligent study and experience, but a tendency to faith in the occult was universal, and the reputation of the ladies probably bore some relation to their success in the cures attempted, for, according to the author of “The Golden Bough,” science is the lineal descendant of witchcraft. The position of pre-eminence as consultants was no longer retained by women in the seventeenth century. Schools and Universities had been founded, where men could study medicine and anatomy, and thus secure for themselves a higher standard of knowledge and efficiency; but, though women were excluded from these privileges they were not yet completely ousted from the medical profession, and as a domestic art medicine was still extensively practised by them.