MPIWG
Contexts Pharmacist

A pharmacist in his workshop surrounded by the paraphernalia of his trade - advertising Richard Siddall. Etching. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Contexts

The essays below offer contexts for understanding early medicine. They are authored by leading scholars and peer reviewed. 

Birth figure showing foetus in womb

Childbirth

Leah Astbury, University of Manchester

Astrologaster 1620

Astrological Medicine

Robert Ralley, University of Cambridge

Aristotles Masterpiece 1684

Monstrosity

Emily Cock, Cardiff University

A papermaker's apprentice carries a stack of sheets

Apprenticeship

Patrick Wallis, London School of Economics

Illustration of blood flow from Harvey De motu cordis

Anatomy

Kathleen Crowther, University of Oklahoma

A man smokes a pipe accompanied by three women

Early Modern Drugs

Benjamin Breen, University of California Santa Cruz

A friar sizes up a side of beef held by a butcher

English Ethnicity and Health

Mary Floyd-Wilson, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

An illustration of a prosthetic arm

Disability

Emily Cock, Cardiff University

Detail of a rose in medical incunabulum

Manuscript to Print

Lori Jones, University of Ottawa

 

Portrait of Paracelsus

Chemical Medicine, Theory

Bruce T. Moran, University of Nevada

A man distills liquid using a still

Chemical Medicine, Practice

Bruce T. Moran, University of Nevada

A woman is let blood by a surgeon

Medicine on the Early Modern Stage

Tanya Pollard, Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York

A sufferer from pox stands under an astrological globe

Contagion

Kevin Siena, Trent University

Distillers

The Range of Healers in Early Modern England

Mary Fissell, Johns Hopkins University 

Disease

Disease

Olivia Weisser, University of Massachusetts Boston

 

Patients 2

Patients

Olivia Weisser, University of Massachusetts Boston

This print shows a printing workshop, with people engraving, inking, and running copper plates through the press, and hanging the printed sheets up to dry.

Printing Images

Rebecca Whiteley, University of Manchester

Uroscopy chart

Medical Images

Rebecca Whiteley, University of Manchester

none

Military Medicine

Seth LeJacq, Duke University

Apothecary shop

Apothecaries

Zachary Dorner, Johns Hopkins University