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  • The Surgeon, the Midwife, the Quack: How to Stay Alive in Renaissance England by Alanna Skuse book cover
  • The Surgeon, the Midwife, the Quack: How to Stay Alive in Renaissance England by Alanna Skuse book cover
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The Surgeon, the Midwife, the Quack: How to Stay Alive in Renaissance England

by Alanna Skuse

Medicine in Renaissance England, beyond the familiar clichés

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Awards & Recognition

  • Critical praise

    Praised by Dan Jones in The Sunday Times

    Described as an entertaining history; the review praises Skuse’s familiarity with contemporary sources and dry wit.

AlbakiReads Editorial

Medicine in Renaissance England, beyond the familiar clichés

Alanna Skuse examines medical practice in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England as a changing marketplace, where formal medical education and closer study of the human body met folk remedies, new treatments and a range of practitioners. The account moves among figures including domestic healer Elizabeth Freke, apothecary Nicholas Culpeper, midwife Jane Sharp and plague doctor George Thomson. Their work places everyday care alongside wider shifts in medical knowledge, including discoveries associated with European expansion into the New World. The book’s historical scope offers a portrait of medicine shaped by both emerging systems and the varied people who treated the sick.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers interested in the history of medicine and Renaissance Europe
  • Those curious about early modern healers, midwives, surgeons and apothecaries

Themes

Renaissance medicineMedical practitioners and healingThe emergence of modern pharmacyWomen’s healthMedical knowledge and exploration

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

Discover the remarkable birth of modern medicine... and how not to die in the Renaissance
'An entertaining history of medicine... Skuse brings a deep familiarity with the contemporary sources and a dry wit.' Dan Jones, The Sunday Times

'A richly researched and atmospheric history.' Wall Street Journal

The cliched view medicine in the Renaissance world is dreadful: gore-splattered hacksaws, arsenic concoctions, the four humours and all those leeches...

Reality, however, proves somewhat different.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a medical revolution was afoot. Physicians' education was being formalised. Surgeons were documenting the intricacies of the human body with ever-greater skill. And, as European powers expanded into the New World, novel medicines and treatments were being discovered.

Alanna Skuse ventures into the bustling medical marketplace of Renaissance England - a world of travelling surgeons, prosthetics craftsmen, faith healers and snake oil merchants.
  • Discover domestic healers like Elizabeth Freke, a doyenne of folk remedies, always ready to dole out tonics and elixirs to her ailing neighbours.
  • Browse the shelves of the early modern apothecary with Nicholas Culpeper as he lays the groundwork for the modern pharmacy.
  • Meet the expert midwife Jane Sharp, successful author and pioneer of women's health.
  • Join the intrepid plague doctor George Thomson as he braves London's Great Plague.


Humane and entrancing, The Surgeon, The Midwife, The Quack reveals the people and stories behind a scientific revolution.

'Fascinating.' Daily Mail

'Meticulously researched and deliciously detailed.' Victoria Shepherd, author of A History of Delusions
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