Please note that this module was available
until 2010, but has since been
withdrawn and is no longer available.

---

Tutor: Dr Elaine Leong

This undergraduate second-year option complements the second-year core module by providing the opportunity for greater depth of study in particular regions and themes.

In times of sickness, early modern men and women faced a wide range of medical care options offered to them by a variety of medical practitioners and priced to suit all budgets. This module is an exploration into the world of bodily health, sickness and medical care in early modern England. Topics covered include an assessment of the general social and living conditions in early modern cities; contemporary theories of the body, health and sickness; the medical marketplace; the patient’s view; cures, drugs and pharmacy; food, exercise and regimen; medicine and cheap print; plague, syphilis and small pox and women and medicine. Students will be expected to conduct close analytical readings of a selection of secondary sources, as well as examine a range of primary sources. Attention will also be drawn to the different interdisciplinary approaches and methods used in the study of medical care in the early modern period.