Medical Remedies in the Elizabethan Era

Several specific methods of treatment are as follows:

The imbalance of one's humors would usually be treated by one of two different people, depending on one's social standing and the income they received.

The Local "Wise Woman"

The Elizabethan Physician

• This medical administrator was usually the first person called to respond to the illness of someone in low social standing.
• The "wise woman" treated patients utilizing knowledge of folk medicine passed through generations.
• These practices included numerous plant and natural remedies that have been recently shown to more medically effective than other treatments occurring in the Elizabethan period.

Digestive problems produced by yellow bile are reduced through herbal laxatives.

• This medical administrator would have have received degrees at an English university and the College of Physicians.
• The physician was typically only utilized by the most wealthy of patients.
• Most of these medical professionals wore clothing that covered all of their skin, including a ghastly mask featuring a long beak full of begamot oil. All this clothing protected the physician from being contaminated by the illness of a patient.

Letting blood (through cupping or leeches) reduces an ill person's fever.

How Did These Medical Administrators Differ in Their Treatment?

The Elizabethan physician differed in treatment style from the local wise women because the physician tended to be more regimented in his treatment, relying heavily on the training he had received from university. In contrast, the "wise woman" tended to lean more toward deploying logic and traditional knowledge to treat disease.

Herbs with sedative or anxiety-easing effects reduce tremors caused by black bile.

How Did These Medical Practices and Beliefs Affect the General Population of England?

Works Cited

Time Accurate Depiction of Smallpox

• Although those who were diseased likely felt reassured after being treated by a medical professional, these treatments often led to more trouble than healing. Preexisting ill conditions were often escalated to a much worse scale after medication in unsanitary environments.
• The insufficient sanitation of a medical administrator's equipment and the environments in which patients were treated enabled diseases such as typhus and smallpox.

Philosophy Regarding the Body

What Treatment Methods Did Both Types of Medical Professionals Use?

• Between the years of 1558 and 1603, most English physicians received information about illness from the teachings of Aristotle and Hippocrates.
• It was believed that healthfulness was based on balance of four bodily humors: black bile, phlegm, yellow bile, and blood.
• Each of the four humors was associated with a fundamental elements of the universe and a season of the year.

• Both the Elizabethan physician and the "wise woman" believed that the humors should be balanced through a combination of multiple changes to the patient's life.
• A manuscript located from slightly before this period states that "...several kinds of medicine may be good such as diet, drink, hot bath (whence sweat us growing), with purging, vomiting and letting blood."

Osborn, David K. “THE FOUR HUMORS.” Greek Medicine: THE FOUR HUMORS, 2007, www.greekmedicine.net/b_p/Four_Humors.html.

“Humours.” Science Museum: Brought to life, Exploring the History of Medicine, www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/techniques/humours.

Alchin, Linda. “Elizabethan Medicine and Illness.” Elizabethan Medicine and Illnesses, 2017, www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/elizabethan-medicine-and-illnesses.htm.

“Humours.” Elizabethan Humours, mason.gmu.edu/~rnanian/humours.html.

Editorial Team. “Shakespearean & Elizabethan Medicine and Doctors.” SchoolWorkHelper, 2016, schoolworkhelper.net/shakespearean-elizabethan-medicine-and-doctors/.

Cambridge University. “Wise Women.” Science Museum: Brought to life, Exploring the History of Medicine, 2000, broughttolife.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/people/wisewomen.

How Did Illness come About in the Body?

The most common and influential beliefs about wellness and why disease occurred came from two philosophers in ancient Greece, Aristotle and Hippocrates.

• Disease was believed to be caused from a severe imbalance of the four humors.
• David K. Osborn L. states, "When the humors are unbalanced, aggravated, or out of sorts, that is a condition called dyscrasia, or 'bad mixture'."
• In contrast, slight imbalances were associated with personality traits.

Medical Beliefs and Practices in the Elizabethan Era

By Kennedy Jester