Blood, Controversy, and Puddings in the Early English Atlantic

By Carla Cevasco How to follow the Word of the Bible and still tuck into a nice blood pudding? This question inspired the Massachusetts Puritan minister Increase Mather to publish a brief pamphlet in 1697 entitled “A Case of Conscience Concerning Eating of Blood, Considered and Answered.” The conundrum, Mather wrote, lay in the injunction from … Continue reading Blood, Controversy, and Puddings in the Early English Atlantic

From bloodstone to fish soup: iron recipes

By Marieke Hendrikksen In my research on the use of metals in eighteenth-century medical chemistry, iron has a special place. Unlike other metals, which were increasingly regarded as dangerous, iron remained a safe bet in blood-related diseases. However, up until the early nineteenth century, this understanding was not so much based on a chemical understanding … Continue reading From bloodstone to fish soup: iron recipes

Pigeon Blood Visine?: An Early Modern Eye Wash

By Jennifer Sherman Roberts Close your eyes and imagine a chicken. Now a duck. Now a turkey. Now a pigeon. If this little experiment has worked the way I envisioned, when you thought of a pigeon you didn’t just think of a different bird but of a different environment. You likely pictured chickens and ducks … Continue reading Pigeon Blood Visine?: An Early Modern Eye Wash

On Medical Manuscripts in Reynolds’ Reading Practice

By: Caleb Prus In 1485, during London’s first epidemic of the sweating sickness, the physician Thomas Forestier complained to Henry VII about certain “false leeches” ⎯healers deceiving the public through “writing of the kind[s] of powders and of medicines.” These “unexpert men” were not university-educated physicians like Forestier but ordinary tradespeople⎯ “carpenters and mill keepers”⎯who … Continue reading On Medical Manuscripts in Reynolds’ Reading Practice