Anyone interested in old medical history should certainly get themselves a copy of Culpeper's Complete Herbal, and other works by Nicholas Culpeper. He was kind of a philosophical anomaly of the 17th century, and drew the ire of the Royal College, because he kept writing how-to manuals, and putting medical terms into langauge uneducated people could understand. He was a big proponent of teaching the masses to treat themselves.
Culpeper's Complete is still cited by herbalists today.
Also, "The English Physitian" also by Culpeper is a good read. It's fascinating to see what a major role astrology played in medicine of the time. Alchemy and astrology. Brilliantly exciting stuff. It's easy to snear at what doctors back then considered to be effective treatments, but frankly I'm not sure that doctors today know much better. In areas like fine surgery (heart, brain, organ transplant etc) enormous leaps have been made, but for the standard, general practitioner? I don't think a lot of effort is made to fix the little, everyday problems that detract from quality of life....chronic problems like ear infections, allergies, food intolerances...etc...things that take a little time and effort to diagnose. Doctors are good at patching people up when they're near death, but they're not so good at the maintenance stuff.
|