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‘Nature Concocts & Expels’: The Agents and Processes of Recovery from Disease in Early Modern England
The ‘golden saying’ in early modern medicine was ‘Nature is the healer of disease’. This article uncovers the meaning and significance of this forgotten axiom by investigating perceptions of the agents and physiological processes of recovery from illness in England, c.1580–1720. Drawing on sources s...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Oxford University Press
2015
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4513889/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26217069 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkv022 |
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author | Newton, Hannah |
author_facet | Newton, Hannah |
author_sort | Newton, Hannah |
collection | PubMed |
description | The ‘golden saying’ in early modern medicine was ‘Nature is the healer of disease’. This article uncovers the meaning and significance of this forgotten axiom by investigating perceptions of the agents and physiological processes of recovery from illness in England, c.1580–1720. Drawing on sources such as medical texts and diaries, it shows that doctors and laypeople attributed recovery to three agents—God, Nature and the practitioner. While scholars are familiar with the roles of providence and medicine, the vital agency of Nature has been overlooked. In theory, the agents operated in a hierarchy: Nature was ‘God's instrument’, and the physician, ‘Nature's servant’; but in practice the power balance was more ambivalent. Nature was depicted both as a housewife who cooked and cleaned the humours, and as a warrior who defeated the disease. Through exploring these complex dynamics, the article sheds fresh light on concepts of gender, disease and bodies. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4513889 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2015 |
publisher | Oxford University Press |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-45138892015-07-27 ‘Nature Concocts & Expels’: The Agents and Processes of Recovery from Disease in Early Modern England Newton, Hannah Soc Hist Med Original Articles The ‘golden saying’ in early modern medicine was ‘Nature is the healer of disease’. This article uncovers the meaning and significance of this forgotten axiom by investigating perceptions of the agents and physiological processes of recovery from illness in England, c.1580–1720. Drawing on sources such as medical texts and diaries, it shows that doctors and laypeople attributed recovery to three agents—God, Nature and the practitioner. While scholars are familiar with the roles of providence and medicine, the vital agency of Nature has been overlooked. In theory, the agents operated in a hierarchy: Nature was ‘God's instrument’, and the physician, ‘Nature's servant’; but in practice the power balance was more ambivalent. Nature was depicted both as a housewife who cooked and cleaned the humours, and as a warrior who defeated the disease. Through exploring these complex dynamics, the article sheds fresh light on concepts of gender, disease and bodies. Oxford University Press 2015-08 2015-03-26 /pmc/articles/PMC4513889/ /pubmed/26217069 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkv022 Text en © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for the Social History of Medicine. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Original Articles Newton, Hannah ‘Nature Concocts & Expels’: The Agents and Processes of Recovery from Disease in Early Modern England |
title | ‘Nature Concocts & Expels’: The Agents and Processes of Recovery from Disease in Early Modern England |
title_full | ‘Nature Concocts & Expels’: The Agents and Processes of Recovery from Disease in Early Modern England |
title_fullStr | ‘Nature Concocts & Expels’: The Agents and Processes of Recovery from Disease in Early Modern England |
title_full_unstemmed | ‘Nature Concocts & Expels’: The Agents and Processes of Recovery from Disease in Early Modern England |
title_short | ‘Nature Concocts & Expels’: The Agents and Processes of Recovery from Disease in Early Modern England |
title_sort | ‘nature concocts & expels’: the agents and processes of recovery from disease in early modern england |
topic | Original Articles |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4513889/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26217069 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkv022 |
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