By Rebekah Weymouth-Shelton In the early modern period mania was seemingly everywhere; madness was a fascination of English society. I found it particularly interesting to find mental illnesses were not only of interest to those in the medical profession but also lay people. Doctors such as Richard Napier showed an alarming presence of madness, as …
Frenesie, Phrensy, Frenzy
By Rebekah Weymouth-Shelton During the early modern period in England there was an ever growing interest in mental health. The interest in the anatomy of the human body coincided with advances in mental illnesses. I found the understanding of individual mental illnesses interesting as one mental illness become interlinked with other mental illnesses. The recognition …
Green Sickness – Disease of Virgins
By Clare Mooney Green sickness or chlorosis was believed to be a form of love melancholy in the early modern period. It typically occurred at the age of puberty and was thought to be caused by a lack of menstruation which led to the inability to eat regular food, fainting, seizures and pale skin.[1] We …
John Archer and Home Herbals
By Clare Mooney Every man his own doctor, completed with an herbal was a book published in 1673 by medical practitioner John Archer. As the title suggests, this was a medical text which was expected to be accessible to everyone. Despite Archer’s attempts to simplify areas of medicine for the ordinary person, he was very …
Hogarth’s Homeless:
By Nicole Kenny While this project mainly focuses on early modern mental health within the household, as it has been acknowledged in other posts, mental health was an extremely personal and domestic affair. This means that in order to understand this properly, it also has to be considered what the experiences were like for those …
Home Care?
By Emma Seeley Mad, insane, lunatic etc. were all early umbrella terms for the multitude of mental illnesses we are aware of today but that eluded the minds of early modern society. Early modern images of the ‘insane’ suggest that mad men were chained up and locked in the rooms of asylums to be forgotten …
Blurry Lines and Inner Demons
By Emma Seeley Warning: this blog post contains graphic descriptions of suicide. Historians often refer to the blurred lines between the natural and the supernatural in the early modern period, that being the fluidity of thought between natural and supernatural occurrences. Something considered as supernatural in origin could also be considered natural in consequence and …
Regal Maladies
By Shakor Paul The benefit of researching a noble family for possible madness or hysteria is that they are heavily documented; more notably a royal family. A royal family is the central focus of each country; therefore, many of their activities are recorded. It can range from day-to-day activities such as their lunch to their …
Call the Doctor! When did Early Modern Medical Professionals help with Mental Illness?
By Nicole Kenny Medical professionals today are a vital part of caring for those who are not only physically ill but those who are also suffering from any form of mental illness. In 2014, more than one in three people – an exact percentage of 37.3% - were receiving treatment for mental health problems in …
Hopping Mad? The Case of Mary Tofts
By Jessie Foreman It’s meant to be one of the happiest days of your life. The often lengthy and excruciating pain of childbirth is supposedly to be worth it, to cradle the new life in your arms. Except, this wasn’t the case for Mary Tofts (1703-1763), a woman from Godalming, Surrey, whose extraordinary birth captivated …
Maladies of the mind 