Every housewife was expected to understand the treatment of the minor ailments at least of her household, and to prepare her own drugs. Commonplace books of this period contain recipes for making mulberry syrup, preserving fruit and preparing meats, mingled with, for example, prescriptions for plague water, which is “very good against the plague, the small-pox, the measles, surfeitts ... and is of a sovereign nature to be given in any sickness.” “An oyle good for any ach—and ointments for sore eyes or breasts, or stone in the kidney or bladder.” And in addition, “my brother Jones his way of making inks.”[[584]] “The Ladies Dispensatory” contains “the Natures, Vertues and Qualities of all Herbs, and Simples usefull in Physick. Reduced into a Methodical Order,” the diseases to be treated including those of men, as well as women and children.[[585]]
As was the case in other domestic arts, girls depended for their training in medicine chiefly on the tradition they received from their mothers, but this was reinforced from other sources as occasion offered. “The Ladies Dispensatory” was not the only handbook published for their use; sometimes, though schools were closed to women, an opportunity occurred for private coaching. Thus Sarah Fell entered in her account book, “July ʸᵉ 5º 1674 by mᵒ to Bro: Loweʳ yᵗ hee gave Thomas Lawson foʳ comeinge over hitheʳ to Instruct him & sistʳˢ, in the knowledge of herbs. 10.00,”[[586]] and when Mrs. Hutchinson’s husband was Governor of the Tower she allowed Sir Walter Raleigh and Mr. Ruthin during their imprisonment to make experiments in chemistry “at her cost, partly to comfort and divert the poor prisoners, and partly to gain the knowledge of their experiments, and the medicines to help such poor people as were not able to seek physicians. By these means she acquired a great deal of skill, which was very profitable to many all her life.”[[587]]
Neither did ladies confine their services to their own household, but extended their benefits to all their suffering neighbours. The care of the sick poor was considered to be one of the duties of a “Person of Quality,” whose housekeepers were expected “to have a competent knowledge in Physick and Chyrurgery, that they may be able to help their maimed, sick and indigent Neighbours; for Commonly, all good and charitable Ladies make this a part of their Housekeepers business.”[[588]] The “Good Woman” is described as one who “distributes among the Indigent, Money and Books, and Cloaths, and Physick, as their severall Circumstances may require,” to relieve “her poorer Neighbours in sudden Distress, when a Doctor is not at Hand, or when they have no Money to buy what may be necessary for them; and the charitableness of her Physick is often attended by some cure or other that is remarkable. God gives a peculiar Blessing to the Practice of those Women who have no other design in this Matter, but the doing Good: that neither prescribe where they may have the Advice of the Learned, nor at any time give or recommend any thing to try Experiments, but what they are assured from former Tryals is safe and innocent; and if it do not help cannot hurt.”[[589]]
The provision made by Lady Falkland of “antidotes against infection and of Cordials, and other several sorts of Physick for such of her Neighbours as should need them, amounted yearly to very considerable summes ... her skil indeed was more than ordinary, and her wariness too.... Bookes of spiritual exhortations, she carried in her hand to these sick persons.”[[590]] Mrs. Elizabeth Bedell “was very famous and expert in Chirurgery, which she continually practised upon multitudes that flock’d to her, and still gratis, without respect of persons, poor or rich. It hapned occasionally that some would return like the heald Samaritan, with some token of thankfulness; though this was seldom. But God did not fail to reward them with (that which in Scripture is most properly call’d his reward) children, and the fruit of the womb. 3 sons and 4 daughters.”[[591]]
Expressions of gratitude to women for these medical services occur in letters and diaries of the time. The Rev. R. Josselin enters January 27th, 1672, “My L. Honeywood sent her coach for me: yᵗ I stayd to March 10, in wᶜʰ time my Lady was my nurse & Phisitian & I hope for much good: ... they considered yᵉ scurvy. I tooke purge & other things for it;”[[592]] Marmaduke Rawdon met with a carriage accident, in which he strained his “arme, but comminge to Hodsden his good cossen Mrs. Williams, with hir arte and care, quickly cured itt, and in ten dayes was well againe.”[[593]]
Nor was the practice of medicine confined to Gentlewomen; many a humble woman in the country, the wife of farmer or husbandman, used her skill for the benefit of her neighbours. In their case, though many were prompted purely by motives of kindness and goodwill, others received payment for their services. How much the dependence of the common people on the skill of these “wise women” was taken for granted is suggested by some lines in “The Alchemist,” where Mammon assures Dol Common
“This nook, here, of the Friers is no Climate
For her to live obscurely in, to learne
Physick, and Surgery, for the Constable’s wife
Of some odde Hundred in Essex.”[[594]]