5 Wolves’ Tongues and Mercury: Pharmaceutical Cures
Early modern patients diagnosed amongst cancer were positioned at the eye of debates well-nigh gender, the nature of disease, anatomy in addition to the humours. More practically, they too institute themselves amongst a malady that was often painful in addition to disfiguring in addition to had the potential to terminate their lives.
Confronted amongst such an illness, what was to locomote done? The next 2 chapters essay how cancer sufferers, in addition to the medical practitioners who attended to them, attempted to stalk or contrary the effects of this disease. I volition debate that, inward their most stiff forms, cancer treatments continued the conceptual separation of patient from affliction which was visible inward zoomorphic in addition to anthropomorphic descriptions of cancer’s character. In in addition to so doing, they diminished the patient’s usage inward their ain cure, patch foregrounding an adversarial human relationship betwixt medical practitioners in addition to ‘rebellious’ cancerous tumours. Throughout the early on modern period, cancer treatments provoked vehement debate over both the nature of affliction in addition to the proper limits of medical intervention.
In this chapter, I investigate non-surgical therapeutics for cancer. These are loosely defined equally those remedies which did non take the dreaded ‘Knife or fire’ inward cutting or otherwise penetrating the flesh (though equally I shall show, this did non hateful that such remedies could non crusade fissures, intentional in addition to otherwise, inward the patient’s skin).Such ‘cures’ were incredibly varied, ranging from strict diets, to unguents such equally crude of frogs (made past baking the creatures amongst butter inward their mouths), to powerful purges of hellebore or senna, in addition to toxic caustics including arsenic in addition to mercury.They were too employed past various parties: although surviving sources primarily document those cures prescribed past professional person medical practitioners, many empirics, apothecaries in addition to lay people had their ain opinions on how best to cure a cancer. Despite the manifestly disparate nature of these materials, a thread tin toilet locomote traced through cancer therapeutics.
The most comprehensive await at early on modern cancer treatments is currently provided past Marjo Kaartinen’s Breast Cancer inward the Eighteenth Century, in addition to the medical landscape that text describes is inward many respects similar to the 1 I explore inward this chapter.Kaartinen notes, for example, the continuity of lay in addition to ‘professional’ therapies for cancer in addition to the incomplete distinction of curative from palliative remedies.Moreover, it is clear that many of the therapies employed inward the eighteenth century were ones which remained unchanged over several hundred years, fifty-fifty dating dorsum to the medieval period. Receipts made from ingredients such equally plants, brute dung in addition to grease were passed downward inward domestic receipt books in addition to through printed texts of various kinds from the sixteenth into the eighteenth century.
This chapter too looks to scholarship on other, to a greater extent than studied, diseases inward lodge to contextualise some of the methods in addition to ingredients employed inward the handling of cancer. In particular, works on venereal pox accept provided valuable details well-nigh the unpleasant side-effects of mercury ‘cures’ which may assistance to explicate why this course of study was such a controversial 1 inward the handling of cancer. As noted inward the Introduction to this book, recent scholarship has too foregrounded the protean nature of the early on modern medical marketplace.
The methods past which medical practitioners attempted to process cancer were diverse, complex and, inward many cases, incompletely recorded. With many medical textbooks listing multiple cures, it is probable that to a greater extent than than 1 avenue of therapy was pursued at whatsoever 1 time, in addition to so that, for example, a patient mightiness undergo purging, apply daily salves or lotions, in addition to keep a modified diet, to a greater extent than or less simultaneously. Broadly speaking, however, it is clear that many early on modern patients in addition to medical practitioners subscribed to the intuitive approach of commencement handling amongst mild therapies, in addition to moving on to increasingly violent ones if the affliction failed to respond.
The initiative of all department of the chapter thus discusses recommendations for the regimen of the cancer sufferer – their diet, the administering of medicinal purges to expel excess humours in addition to bloodletting. Such prescriptions, I argue, were based on an agreement of the affliction equally humoral inward origin in addition to emphasise the responsibleness of the patient for their ain physical well-being. The moment department looks to internal medicaments, unguents in addition to salves which were specific to cancer. Such therapies increasingly treated cancer sufferers equally interchangeable, becoming to a greater extent than invested inward combatting cancer equally an ontologically independent complaint. In the tertiary section, I await at those medicines – commonly applied to ulcers in addition to tumours on the body’s surface – amongst corrosive properties, primarily arsenic in addition to mercury. Unpleasant, in addition to ofttimes dangerous, such therapies were highly controversial, but, tantalisingly, seemed to hope an ‘eating’ strength to contender that of the malignant tumour.
In this chapter, I investigate non-surgical therapeutics for cancer. These are loosely defined equally those remedies which did non take the dreaded ‘Knife or fire’ inward cutting or otherwise penetrating the flesh (though equally I shall show, this did non hateful that such remedies could non crusade fissures, intentional in addition to otherwise, inward the patient’s skin).Such ‘cures’ were incredibly varied, ranging from strict diets, to unguents such equally crude of frogs (made past baking the creatures amongst butter inward their mouths), to powerful purges of hellebore or senna, in addition to toxic caustics including arsenic in addition to mercury.They were too employed past various parties: although surviving sources primarily document those cures prescribed past professional person medical practitioners, many empirics, apothecaries in addition to lay people had their ain opinions on how best to cure a cancer. Despite the manifestly disparate nature of these materials, a thread tin toilet locomote traced through cancer therapeutics.
The most comprehensive await at early on modern cancer treatments is currently provided past Marjo Kaartinen’s Breast Cancer inward the Eighteenth Century, in addition to the medical landscape that text describes is inward many respects similar to the 1 I explore inward this chapter.Kaartinen notes, for example, the continuity of lay in addition to ‘professional’ therapies for cancer in addition to the incomplete distinction of curative from palliative remedies.Moreover, it is clear that many of the therapies employed inward the eighteenth century were ones which remained unchanged over several hundred years, fifty-fifty dating dorsum to the medieval period. Receipts made from ingredients such equally plants, brute dung in addition to grease were passed downward inward domestic receipt books in addition to through printed texts of various kinds from the sixteenth into the eighteenth century.
This chapter too looks to scholarship on other, to a greater extent than studied, diseases inward lodge to contextualise some of the methods in addition to ingredients employed inward the handling of cancer. In particular, works on venereal pox accept provided valuable details well-nigh the unpleasant side-effects of mercury ‘cures’ which may assistance to explicate why this course of study was such a controversial 1 inward the handling of cancer. As noted inward the Introduction to this book, recent scholarship has too foregrounded the protean nature of the early on modern medical marketplace.
The methods past which medical practitioners attempted to process cancer were diverse, complex and, inward many cases, incompletely recorded. With many medical textbooks listing multiple cures, it is probable that to a greater extent than than 1 avenue of therapy was pursued at whatsoever 1 time, in addition to so that, for example, a patient mightiness undergo purging, apply daily salves or lotions, in addition to keep a modified diet, to a greater extent than or less simultaneously. Broadly speaking, however, it is clear that many early on modern patients in addition to medical practitioners subscribed to the intuitive approach of commencement handling amongst mild therapies, in addition to moving on to increasingly violent ones if the affliction failed to respond.
The initiative of all department of the chapter thus discusses recommendations for the regimen of the cancer sufferer – their diet, the administering of medicinal purges to expel excess humours in addition to bloodletting. Such prescriptions, I argue, were based on an agreement of the affliction equally humoral inward origin in addition to emphasise the responsibleness of the patient for their ain physical well-being. The moment department looks to internal medicaments, unguents in addition to salves which were specific to cancer. Such therapies increasingly treated cancer sufferers equally interchangeable, becoming to a greater extent than invested inward combatting cancer equally an ontologically independent complaint. In the tertiary section, I await at those medicines – commonly applied to ulcers in addition to tumours on the body’s surface – amongst corrosive properties, primarily arsenic in addition to mercury. Unpleasant, in addition to ofttimes dangerous, such therapies were highly controversial, but, tantalisingly, seemed to hope an ‘eating’ strength to contender that of the malignant tumour.
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