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Letter 2717

Posted on August 2, 2016 by -

Henry Barham Sr. to Hans Sloane – July 3, 1725


Item info

Date: July 3, 1725
Author: Henry Barham Sr.
Recipient: Hans Sloane

Library: British Library, London
Manuscript: Sloane MS 4048
Folio: ff. 15-16


Original Page


Transcription

[fol. 15] Jamaica July 3d 1725 Worthy Sr Your Kindes Letter of October I Did not Receive until March Last Wherein you friendly Admonish me of my mistakes in My Hortus: for wch I Give Hearty thanks: knowing that no Man is a Fitter Judge and to Correct than your Self wch I hope you Will if you think it (after your amendments wch I hope you Will do me that Favor) and after your 2d Volume is out: Worth Printing and any Bookseller Will venture Upon the undertakeing they may have it only letting of me have bory [?] of them myself I know it Will Sell in Jamaica for most Planters are in great Expectation of it but if not Worth Printing or nobody Will undertake it I Desire it may be Sent to me again I Long to See yr 2d Volume that Sort of Apocynum Called Blood Flower is Now Much in use here and ther Planters Will not be persuaded that it is not the True Ipecuana They Now Frequently give the Juice of the Stalk and Leaves even to Children for Worms wch they affirm is Never Fails to bring them a Way they Own it Works upwards and Downwards but that without any prejudice or Dainger as for my part I Never Dare be So Bold as to Administer it But as I Mentioned to you before I have stopt Old Gleets with a Week Decoction of the Leaves and Since my last arrival I have Orderd a Tea to be made of the Dry Flowers to those that have Laboured under Old Continual Gleets without Malignancy or Verulency it hath perfectly Cured them and those that were in Old Age I Should be proud to Serve you in Sending you Specimens of Plants Altho I think I Can ad butt Little to what you have done But I Grow Old and very Corpulent being much Fatter than when I was in England: I keeping no Horse and Seldom or ever Ride into the Country; have not the Oportunity to Collect any Plants and if I Imploy any Person to gett them they lay them down in Such a Rude manner that its Difficult to Distinguish them as I Believe you found it So by the Logwood Branch I Sent you by my Son wch Grows Now in Great Plenty in Jamaica and the Planters make great use of them for Fences Growing very Thick Always Green and very full of Sharp Prickle when young I have mett with an Ingenious young man who Draws and Paints very Nicely who I have Instructed is the Knowledg of our Plants. He hath undertook to put the True and Living Colours of some of yours Cutts with their Flowers; This Person is now in the Mountains when He Returns I Shall Imploy Him to Gett Some of the Gaudiralla Bitter Fol. 16 Bitter Wood and the 2 Sorts of Brasilotto or any thing Else you Desire: As to my Sallary its Opinion of the Best of our Lawyers I must beg in the Suit there and if you are in my Favours wch they all say it must according to Equity Justice it Will Soon be Obtained Here but if Judgment be Given for me here its Difficulty to Gett the Mony: for Altho Mait [?] Ayscough hath Carried a Rich Widdow She Can have but her Thirds She having many Children and his Own Estate is Mortgaged for more than its Worth to his Brothers Widdow in England. And there is no touching his Body being Chief Justice and Presedent of the Council young Long Pleads Nonage [?] and his Curcumstances very Low sold his House lately for 800 pounds wch is Worth above 1200 wch bespakes his Necessity the Commission […] over: by Bad Wheather and Neglegence together the Time for Executeing was Elapsd the Patented Commissioners took the Advantage of it therefore forced to Send over for an Alias Commission Since that one of the Subscribers Commissioner is Dead on Robert Pool So that I Believe little Will be made of it: I was Ready with all Matters Relateing to the Affair: wch Would have been of Great Service to the Subscribers; but if they make No steps to Consider me. I Shall forget them and if I Can have no Satisfaction from the Patenters I must endeavour to be Contented: wch is all at Present wishing you health, Joy and Prosperity: I always Remain yr Most Humble Servant H Barham

Henry Barham (1670?-1726) was a botanist. He lived in Jamaica and corresponded with Sloane on the plant and animal life of the island. Parts of Barham’s letters to Sloane appeared in the latter’s Natural History of Jamaica (T. F. Henderson, Barham, Henry (1670?1726), rev. Anita McConnell, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/1374, accessed 13 June 2011]).



Patient Details

Letter 0371

Posted on August 2, 2016 by -

Samuel Smith to Hans Sloane – June 29, 1692


Item info

Date: June 29, 1692
Author: Samuel Smith
Recipient: Hans Sloane

Library: British Library, London
Manuscript: Sloane MS 4036
Folio: f. 130


Original Page


Transcription

Dale asks Smith to pass 6 botanical queries on to Sloane. Smith requests Sloane provide his answers ‘wth w’t convenient speed you can’. Samuel Dale was an apothecary, botanist, and physician who contributed several articles to the Philosophical Transactions. He was John Ray’s executor and good friend, and from Dale’s letters to Sloane we learn many details of Ray’s final moments (G. S. Boulger, Dale, Samuel (bap. 1659, d. 1739), rev. Juanita Burnby, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/7016, accessed 5 July 2013]). Samuel Smith apprenticed to the book trade in 1675 and was indentured to the bookseller Samuel Gellibrand followed by Moses Pitt. Smith joined the Stationers Company and became freeman of the company and then freeman of the city of London in 1682. Smith published the Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions from the beginning of his career and he and his partner Benjamin Walford were officially named ‘printers to the Royal Society’ in 1693 (Marja Smolenaars, Ann Veenhoff, Smith, Samuel (bap. 1658, d. 1707), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/63289, accessed 27 June 2013]).



Patient Details

Choosing the Countryside: Women, Health and Power in the Eighteenth Century

Posted on March 8, 2013 by - Early Modern History, Family, Gender History, History of Medicine, Patients

To honour International Women’s Day today, I have decided to return to my roots as a women’s historian. I first became a historian for feminist reasons: to recover women’s past and to understand the relationships among culture, body, gender, and status.

The control women had over their bodies has often been a staple topic of feminism and women’s medical history. We love to dig out (largely nineteenth and twentieth century) stories about the horrors inflicted upon women’s bodies: clitorodectomies, forced sterilisation, and more. They make for chilling telling. Or perhaps we look back to Antiquity: women as monsters or inferior, inverted men. We find the tales about menstrual blood being poisonous. It’s easy, surrounded by such stories, to assume that the goal of medicine has been about controlling women.

But the reality is far more complicated.

In the early eighteenth century, the misogynistic medical theories of inferiority, for example, were seldom practiced. All bodies were treated as humoral bodies, with specific temperaments that were individual to a patient. Medicine was highly interventionist (and often ineffective) for both sexes. And, more to the point, medical practitioners were dependent on their patients for success. This was not just in terms of payment or patronage.[1] . In an age before anaesthesia, or even stethoscopes, doctors and surgeons were unable to look inside the living body: patients’ stories were invaluable tools in diagnosis. Women could have much control over their own health.

Promising? Not exactly. These women’s choices were still limited in a multitude of ways. The ability to make decisions about one’s own body, whether historically or today, is an important marker of women’s equality. An old argument, perhaps, but one that is as true now as ever. When talking about control in the modern world, it often comes down to topics such as abortion or female genital mutilation. The dullness of day-to-day inequality is easy to overlook when there are more pressing issues.

Back in the eighteenth century, the fundamental inequalities within society can often be seen within the household. Women might, for example, have been well-treated by physicians–but, as letters to physician Hans Sloane show, their ability to make medical decisions was limited by something even more fundamental: access to money.

John Constable, Wivenhoe Park, Essex (1816). From: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., USA (Wikimedia Commons).

A husband could decide when and how a woman saw a doctor. In 1715, physician William Lilly commented that his patient Lady Suffolk was well enough to travel to London from her countryside residence in order to see Sloane, but only “if my Lord thinks fitt to bring her”.[2] Even when a  woman was pleased with her medical care, her husband might choose another course of treatment, as one unnamed doctor complained. He had been treating Lady Salisbury in 1727, who agreed with his recommendation that she should go to the countryside while she recuperated. Lord Salisbury, however, had other ideas. He dismissed the unnamed physician, instead turning over his wife’s care to Dr. Hale. No reasons were given for the change.[3]

Whether or not a woman received care was also up to her husband. Although the head of a household was obliged to provide medical care for everyone within it, the extent of the care needed was open to dispute.[4] Mrs A. Smith, for example, found that her treatments in Bath were useful, but her husband refused to continue paying. Someone, she believed, “has told Mr Smith that I am very well and I only pretend illness to stay in Towne”. Her dependence on Mr Smith’s decisions was clear. She noted that she was unhappy, since “all my Ease depends a pone Mr Smith’s opinion of me”. Worried that she would become more ill if her husband sent her to the countryside, she begged Sloane to intervene by “tell[ing] him how you thinke me”.[5]

Family members might try to help if they believed a woman’s health was being affected by her husband’s choices, but this was complicated and not always successful. The law, after all, ultimately upheld the power of a husband over his wife. Jane Roupell wrote to Sloane about her daughter, Lady Anne Ilay, on the grounds that her son-in-law had weakened her daughter’s health through his lack of care. Mrs. Roupell asked if Sloane might visit before seeing her daughter, so she could “tell you somthings that she is ashamed to tell her selfe”. It would be best, she thought, if her daughter could recover away from her husband–perhaps, she suggested, Sloane might recommend that Lady Ilay be sent to the countryside.[6]

The countryside in these four letters becomes alternatively a place of health, a place of isolation or a place of refuge. Although we’ve moved on a lot since the eighteenth century, there are two basic women’s health issues that underpinned these seemingly simple disputes about going to the countryside: access to health care and finances.

Most often, the Sloane correspondence provides examples of women’s families wanting the best for their wives and daughters, but women were always in precarious positions. Each woman came from a wealthy background and had doctors (such as Sloane) who were potential allies, but as the cases show, women could not simply choose what treatment they wanted without consulting their families. One thing was clear: it was ultimately up to their husbands what a woman’s medical treatment should be.


[1] See for example, Wendy Churchill, Female Patients in Early Modern Britain (Ashgate, 2012).

[2] British Library Sloane MS 4076, f. 14, 28 July 1715.

[3] British Library Sloane MS 4078, f. 304, 26 March 1727/8.

[4] Catherine Crawford, “Patients’ Rights and the Law of Contract in Eighteenth-century England”, Social History of Medicine 13 (2000): 381-410.

[5] British Library Sloane MS 4077, f. 37, n.d.

[6] British Library Sloane MS 4060, f. 203, f. 204, n.d.

A longer version of this argument appears in: L.W. Smith, “Reassessing the Role of the Family: Women’s Medical Care in Eighteenth-Century England”, Social History of Medicine 16, 3 (2003): 327-342.

Eighteenth-Century Pain and the Modern Problem of Measuring Pain

Posted on April 12, 2013 by - Early Modern History, Experimentation, Hans Sloane's Personal Life, History of Medicine, History of Science, Letter-writing, Patients, Remedies

The offending machine. A Saskatchewan example. Image credit: Daryl Mitchell, Wikimedia Commons.

I read the news about the recent study using fMRI to measure physical and emotional pain intensity right after a visit to the physiotherapist for help with my migraines. (I’ve been a migraineur since the age of eleven when a Tilt-a-Whirl ride gave me a case of whiplash.) Although there is not always a close relationship between life events and scholarly work, my migraines have shaped my interest in patients’ illness narratives. It is as both scholar and sufferer that I am troubled by the fMRI study’s implications.

Running through much of the pain scholarship is the assumption that it cannot be adequately represented by language or truly understood by others.[1] Chronic pain’s invisibility makes it difficult even for people close to a sufferer to sympathise. There has been a recent shift to trying to understand pain holistically, with the development of pain clinics where sufferers can receive treatment from a variety of health practitioners and the focus is on mind-body integration. But scientific studies of pain still often come down to one question: can you tell how much pain a patient is experiencing, either in relation to his own pain, or that of others? To this end, many have tried to find ways of measuring pain.[2]

The news is all abuzz, with headlines such as “Study shows pain is all in your head, and you can see it”. Like many previous studies, the latest attempts to provide, as Maggie Fox at NBC News puts it, an “objective way to measure pain”. Researchers applied heat-based pain to volunteers, then measured the changes within the brain using fMRI. They were able to identify a person’s relative pain, such as when one burn feels worse than another, as well as the influence of painkillers. The results of this study have the potential to be very useful when treating patients who are unable to talk or unconscious.

But there is an unsettling aspect to the study—or at least to the way in which it is being reported—in that it tries to distinguish between a real, objective pain and the experienced pain. According to the lead researcher Tor Dessart Wager quoted in the above article, the tests reveal that people really do feel pain differently: “Let’s say I give you a 48-degrees stimulus and you go ‘This is okay; I can handle it’ and I might say ‘Oh, this really hurts’… My brain is going to respond more strongly than yours. We are using this to track what people say they feel.” In other words, some people are wimps and some are stoic—and patients cannot be trusted to report the truth.

An unhelpful distinction at best: it misses out the psycho-social experience of pain of why one person might feel the pain more keenly. Age, ethnicity, status and sex all play an important role not just in a sufferer’s experience of pain, but in how others perceive what the experience should be and the trustworthiness of a sufferer’s account of pain.

It is also a potentially dangerous distinction, reinforcing as it does the idea that pain needs to be measured objectively and that technology provides the answers. The problem, as Daniel Goldberg tweeted yesterday, is that:

A report in Scientific American explains the study’s implications for chronic sufferers. The fMRI was also used to measure coping tactics for the heat-induced pain, such as mindfulness, meditation, imagination or religious belief, revealing that such methods reduce pain. Pssssst… about that: we’ve known this for a while. These sorts of methods were used long before we had effective painkillers and are frequently used by modern chronic illness sufferers.

Will measuring pain ‘objectively’ really benefit the sufferer? The use of technology for chronic pain provides a mere (if very expensive) bandaid and, to make matters worse, undermines one of the most important elements in a successful doctor-patient relationship: trust. Sometimes looking at a historical case can pinpoint the modern problems.

Lady Sondes just before her marriage. Miniature of Lady Katherine Tufton by Peter Cross, 1707. Image Credit: Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Catherine Watson, Lady Sondes, wrote to Sloane several times between 1722 and 1734 about an unspecified illness.[3] Although she was in her late 30s, she had a litany of complaints that made her feel as “old and decayed” as someone aged fifty or sixty. Her pains ranged from headaches, gnawing leg pains, and “fullness” in her head to a stiff lip, constant fear, memory loss and “rising nerves”. She described the ways her daily life was affected. Besides being constantly distracted by pain, she worried about her legs giving out from under her or losing her memory so she would be unable to do the household accounts. These were problems for a woman who prided herself on running a large household successfully. Her descriptions were circular and repetitive, even boring, but reflected her ongoing experience: the physical pains, often not severe, nagged constantly at her throughout the day, and the fear and anxiety of what the pain might mean was all-encompassing.

Her symptoms did eventually pass, allowing her to once again go “about Busiynesse”, but the treatment had been difficult. Lady Sondes began to consult Sloane by letter when she disagreed with her regular physician’s diagnosis of hysteria. While Dr. Colby considered her ailment to be hysteria, Lady Sondes did not feel that she could trust her full story to him. Hysteria was associated with overly delicate women and a mixture of imagined problems alongside real ones, suggesting that such a diganosis may have predisposed Colby to disregard her accounts of pain. She wrote instead to Sloane who treated her “with great kindness and care”. It was not until Colby rediagnosed her as having a blood condition that she began to trust him again. A large part of Lady Sondes’ healing came from the ability to express her narrative. Sloane was not physically present; the greatest therapy he could have provided was reading her letters and answering her specific, stated concerns.

Chronic pain, with its messy emotional bits and day-to-day dullness, is encompassed within an entire life, not just a few moments spent inside a machine while clutching something uncomfortable. A crucial component of effective therapy is the trust between doctor and patient, allowing the patient to create a narrative, to be heard and to be understood. If a physician is primed to distrust a patient’s account, whether through a diagnosis or reliance on technology, the healing process will be thwarted. Sure we can measure pain, but when it comes to chronic pain, it’s not really the question we should be asking.

[1] This comes from Elaine Scarry’s influential book, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985).

[2] For example, the famous McGill Pain Questionnaire. See R. Melzack, “The McGill Pain Questionnaire: Major Properties and Scoring Methods”, Pain 1, 3 (1975): 277-299.

[3] I discuss this case and others from Sloane’s letters in my article, “ ‘An Account of an Unaccountable Distemper’: The Experience of Pain in Early Eighteenth-Century England and France”, Eighteenth-Century Studies 41, 4 (2008): 459-480.

Letter 1214

Posted on August 2, 2016 by -

William Derham to Hans Sloane – October 26, 1708


Item info

Date: October 26, 1708
Author: William Derham
Recipient: Hans Sloane

Library: British Library, London
Manuscript: Sloane MS 4041
Folio: ff. 235-236


Original Page


Transcription

[fol. 235r]
Upminster Oct: 26. 1708.

Sr

I recd some time since a Letter from Maghrafelt in the North of
Ireland, from a very intelligent person ^there^, & great well-wisher to our R. So-
ciety, one Mr Neve: who out of his own good will had collected some of ye
Lough-Neagh Petrifications, pieces of the Giants-Causeway, & other curiosi-
ties, & sent them, he tells me, as far as Bristol: but hearing the So-
ciety had of them already in their Repository, he took no further care of them.

He hath sent me divers particulars relating to Lough-Neagh; which I
give you no account of at present, because there is nothing but what
is in effect in Mr W. Molyneaux’s, & Mr Ed. Smiths accounts, already
published in the Transactions. But there are some other matters related
by him, that I believe will not be unacceptable.

He tells me, that on Oct. 7. 1706 after a very Rainy day, &
Southerly Wind, there happened a prodigious Flood (the like not in the me-
mory of man) which broke down several Bridges, & the sides of some
of the Mountains in that part of Ireland. That it came running
down in vast Torrents from some of the Mountains, & drowned a-
bundance of Black-Cattle & Sheep, spoiled a great deal of Corn and
Hay in the Stacks, that it laid abundance of Houses 2 or 3 feet
deep in water, and broke down several of the Forge and Mill-Dams.
Also on July 3. 1707 they had another Flood, which came so suddain-
ly from the Mountains, as if there had been some suddain Eruption of the
water. And also on the 26th of the same month, in the county of An-
trim, there was a very suddain & surprizing Flood, which raised the
Six-Mile-River ^(so called)^ at that rate, that it broke down two strong Stone
Bridges, & three Houses, & carried away 600 pieces of Linnen-Cloth, that
lay a Bleaching, filled many Houses several feet deep with water
tore down some large Rocks in it’s passage, & left several Meadows
covered a foot or two deep with sand. That they in the South East part of the
County of Derry had that day but little Rain with some Thunder: but be-
yond the Mountains, in the North West part of the County, he River Roe had a great
Flood.

Another thing he gives me an account of, is of some monstrous Birth
viz. That an Alderman of the City of Derry told him That a Cow in the
year 1706 had, within a mile of that City, calved six Calves, then all dead.
That the Barrack-Master told him Dec. 6. 1706 of a Monstrous humane
Birth ^which the Barrack Master saith he himself saw^ in London-Derry, viz With two Heads, 4 arms, and but one Body
at the Navel. That it was of both Sexes, Female on the Right side; Male
on the left. That the Right hand of the Male was behind the Females
Back, and the Left hand of the Female behind the Males back, hold-
ing each other, as in Loving-manner. This Child, or Children were born
alive, but lived but a little while. My Friend was informed that
this monstrous Birth was dissected by the Mayor of Derry (his acquain-
tance) and (if it would be any service or satisfaction to the Society) he
 

Sloane MS 4041, f. 235v


[fol. 235v]
told me he could easily procure a full account of his Observations.
The last curiosity he gives me an account of is as I imagine
that which some call the Northern Streaming, which I do not re-
member the Society had ever any accounts of; and this being (I
must confess) one of the best ^most particular^ accounts I ever, & very met with
of it, and very consentaneous to such another appearance in the Hea-
vens, which my ingenious Neighbour & Friend Mr Barret (of the
Society) was credibly informed of, was seen in his neighbourhood
in Sep: or Oct: 1706, I say that ^Mr Neves^ account being so particular, will I hope
be very acceptable to the Society. ^It is thus^ “On Sunday Nov: 16 1707 after a
“Frosty morning, and Fair still Day, Wind NorthWesterly, about half an
“hour after eight in the evening, there appeared a very strang
“Light in the North. The Evening was clear and Starlight, only
“the Horizon was darkened with condensed Vapours in the North,
“reaching I guess 10 or 15 degrees above the Horizon. Out of this
“Cloud proceeded several Streams or Rays of Light, like the
“Tails of some Comets, broad below, and ending in Points above.
“Some of them extended almost to the Tail of Ursa Minor, and
“all were nearly perpendicular to the Horizon, and it was as bright
“as if the Full Moon had been Rising in the Cloud. But what I won-
“dered at most, was the Motion of the dark and lighter parts run-
“ning strangly through one another in a moment; sometimes to the
“East, and sometimes to the West. It continued, after I first saw it, about
“a Quarter of an Hour, often changing it’s Face and Appearance,
“as to Form and Light; sometimes broken, sometimes entire and
“long Rays of Light in the clear Sky, quite separate from, and
“above the Cloud, and none below in the Cloud.
Not having room in this page in the next you have my observa-
tions of the late Eclipses of the Sun & Moon.

I am Sir with greatest respect both
Yours & the Societies much obliged humble servant
Wm Derham

To prevent mistakes I think I think
it necessary to observe that this Light
which Mr Neve saw is very different
from that like the Tail of a Comet,
which hath been seen in the Constellation of Taurus, or near it; which I
happened to see in 1706. the Figure whereof is published in the Trans:
Number 305 & A which some are pleased to call the Aurora Borealis. Which
name in my opinion would better befit this Lumen Boreali, which is seldom, if
ever seen out of the North.
 

Sl MS 4041, f. 236r


[Fol. 236r]

The Eclipse of the Sun on Sept: 3 in the morning at Upminster

The beginning of the Eclipse we could not see for Clouds
6h.44.15 The Sun peeped out of the Clouds, & I judged by my Eye that about
one Tenth of a Digit was Eclipsed
Then Clouds nearly all the time of the Eclipse. But at
8.31.15 A little obscuration appeared through the Telescope.
8.32.45 A very little obscuration, through the Telescope.
Then Clouds and at
8.35.45 We could discern no remains of the Eclipse through the Telescope.
From these Observations I imagine the End of this Solar Eclipse,
Was much about 8h 33l in the morning.
The Eclipse of the Moon Sep: 18 in the Evening at Upminster
As I was that evening coming from London, I observed for half an
hour, or more, a thin shade to possess that part of the Disk where the E-
clipse began, which remained a good while after the Eclipse was over.
After I got home, I made a shift to mount Telescopes, & get all things
in readiness before the Eclipse began. And the principal Observations I made
thereof were these following.
7h 56 30 A thin Penumbra.
7 57 40 A darker penumbra.
7 59 00 Yet darker, which may pass for the Beginning of the Eclipse.
8 00 00 The Eclipse no doubt begun.
9 1 00 The Lucid parts of the Moon, not long before the Middle of the E-
clipse, were 925 parts of my Micrometer.
9 16 40 Diameter of the Moon 1634 parts of the Micrometer.
10 23 11 The End of the Eclipse draws nigh.
10 25 0 A little obscuration.
10 26 0 Less.
10 28 15 A very little, excepting the Duskishness befor mentioned.

Derham was a Church of England clergyman and a natural philosopher, interested in nature, mathematics, and philosophy. He frequently requested medical advice from Sloane, and likely served as a physician to his family and parishioners (Marja Smolenaars, “Derham, William (1657-1735)”, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/7528, accessed 7 June 2011]).

There is the remnant of a red seal on the external part of the letter (fol. 236v].

Sloane MS 4041, f. 236 v



Patient Details

A Curious Case of a Petrified Leg

Posted on October 1, 2012 by - Early Modern History, History of Medicine, Philosophical Transactions, Remedies

The Sloane Correspondence contains several examples of curious medical cases, many of which were intended for publication in the Philosophical Transactions (which Sloane as secretary of the Royal Society edited for many years). One such case is that of Mrs Stevens of Maidenhead, aged 62. Surgeon Ralph Calep recounted her case in a letter to anatomist William Cowper, who in turn forwarded it to Sloane for publication.

Mrs Stevens became ill with a fever in November 1697. Within two weeks, she developed a swelling and numbness in her foot that spread up her leg. For a month, the attending physician treated her with remedies that theoretically should have helped according to early modern medical thought. The first treatment was a warm, moist compress of centaury, wormwood, and St. John’s Wort. According to the Pharmacopoia Londinensis (1702), these ingredients all had hot and dry properties and cleansed and treated wounds. Centaury might be used to treat scurvy (often seen as a skin problem) or gout, while wormwood was thought useful in resisting putrefaction. St. John’s Wort was supposed to dissolve bad blood and cure wounds. The second remedy, an oil of turpentine with galbanum, was to relieve pain, soften the skin, and reduce the tumour.

By the time surgeon Ralph Calep saw Mrs Stevens in early 1698, her foot and leg were in a bad way: brown and withered with black spots and no feeling in the leg. She was in great pain and occasionally delirium, begging Calep for help. But the only solution Calep could think of was to remove the leg, which Mrs Stevens refused. Calep thought this was best since he “did not expect any Success in the performing of it”, given her age and weakness, and left “supposing I shou’d never see her more”. He advised her friends to continue the compresses.

Amputation scene, “De gangraena et sphacelo”
Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images

A month later, Calep returned and was surprised to discover Mrs Stevens still alive, though with a hole in her leg that discharged black matter. Calep enlarged the opening to aid the flow. He also cut into a tumour on her knee, but was surprised to find nothing but air. He again left the patient, advising her to continue the compresses. When he returned another month later, he was not only surprised to find her still alive, but “to my admiration saw that, which thro’ the whole course of my Life I may never see again”: Nature had made a perfect separation of the mortified flesh, with the skin above looking healthy. At this point, he decided to remove the leg. Now, over ten years later, the woman was still alive! For Phil. Trans. readers, this would have indeed been a fascinating case—a peculiar physical problem, with a remedy that demonstrated the power of nature’s healing.

For the historian, the tale is intriguing for a couple other reasons. First: the surgeons’ claims to authority. Calep had one complaint after the amputation. He had hoped to take the leg for dissection, but “the Friends of the Woman deceived me”. They had promised to keep the leg for him, but then buried it in a secret location. Calep’s authority rested in his careful observation over time, as well as the verification of the story by Cowper. Cowper included a note to Sloane stating that he had also been to visit Mrs Stevens, though he had been unable to look at the thigh. Mrs Stevens was “decrepid” and the weather was too cold for her to show him. He did, however, feel the stump through her clothing and Cowper diagnosed her problem as one of petrification in the arteries. This problem, he had previously seen in “aged Persons” or cases of gangrene, and had published on it. Cowper’s authority rested in his reputation and previous scholarship.

William Cowper. Credit: National Library of Medicine and Wikimedia Commons.

But what is striking is the absence of real evidence: the amputated leg had disappeared and Cowper had not actually examined Mrs Stevens’ stump in detail. In the late seventeenth century, natural philosophers were establishing what counted as good evidence. Close observation and reputation were two of the crucial elements, but both surgeons recognised that their accounts would have been even more compelling if they had been able to examine the leg and stump. Each explained in detail why they had not done so.

The case is also interesting for what it tells us about the relationships among surgeon, patient, and patient’s friends. The “friends” (which would have included family) were important throughout, ensuring that Mrs Stevens received good care during her illness. Mrs Stevens also continued to have full control over her medical care, despite her occasional delirium. She refused the only treatment Calep could offer, amputation, until her leg started the process of separation itself. She was typical of many patients in this regard, who generally avoided surgery until it became the only option–unsurprising in an age without anaesthesia. Later, she also refused to show Cowper her stump in its entirety.

The patient’s control over the disposal of the body part appears to have been more contentious. Calep certainly wanted the leg for scientific purposes—at the very least for dissection, but possibly even intending to preserve it as a sample. He even seemed to expect that he should have it, suggesting that he’d been tricked out of having it when he called the friends deceitful. For Mrs Stevens, by contrast, there may have been some anxiety surrounding the leg’s dissection: what might happen to her body at the Resurrection? Was it shameful? By burying the leg, Mrs Stevens’ friends would have been acting on her wishes, or seeking to protect her.

A curious case, indeed, for contemporaries and historians alike!

Letter 1892

Posted on August 2, 2016 by -

William Derham to Hans Sloane – March 27, 1713


Item info

Date: March 27, 1713
Author: William Derham
Recipient: Hans Sloane

Library: British Library, London
Manuscript: Sloane MS 4043
Folio: ff. 134-135


Original Page


Transcription

[fol. 135] Sr Upmr Mar. 27 1713 I beg the favour of your advice for my Wife, who hath for these 2 or 3 months past been afflicted with so violent Headaches yt throw her into Fits, yt suffocate her, distort her Mouth, & make her convulse in other parts. She hath been blooded, which gave her a few days relief, but yesterday & this night she is as bad as ever. She is seldome quite free, but afflicted most of all about a week before the Fluxus, & so to the very time, & some time after. If it be not in her Head, she hath cholical pains, or in her Limbs like Rheumatick. When her Head is bad, her stomach commonly turns all in it sour, so sharp in coming up yt it sets her teeth on edge; & after that the perfect contents of the Gall. Your advice upon her deplorable case will be a great addition to your former many favours. I am sorry I can send you no account of what I intended to say to Blatch for what he expected to look after your Farm at Orset. But it ma The reason is, He is so busy in his Seed-time, yt he comes not to Rumford & I having two Presses at work on my Boyls Lectures am not able to stir from home. But it matters not much because there is a man come into the Cock, where Lucking went out of, yt I believe will do your business when I am able to speak with him. I wish I was as able, as I am willing to go over to Orset, to dispatch this matter for you, especially to see my self what Wood Finch hath lopped. But no stirring in a mile till my Book is finished. With great respect I am Sr Your much obliged humble servt Wm Derham I hope they have taken care of what I wrote to you about ye omission in Mr Rays Preface. Mt Innys will be here to morrow, & I will then enquire. I hope Mr Innys hath presented you & Dr Robinson wth Mr Rays Synopsis, yt you both had such a share in

Derham was a Church of England clergyman and a natural philosopher, interested in nature, mathematics, and philosophy. He frequently requested medical advice from Sloane, and likely served as a physician to his family and parishioners (Marja Smolenaars, “Derham, William (1657-1735)”, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/7528, accessed 7 June 2011]).



Patient Details

  • Patient info
    Name: N/A Anna Derham
    Gender:
    Age:
  • Description

    Mrs Derham has had 'violent Headaches' for the past '2 or 3 months' as well as 'cholical pains, or in her Limbs like Rheumatick.' Her stomach sours often, which 'set her teeth on edge' when she vomits. She has 'the perfect contents of the Gall.'

  • Diagnosis

    Derham asks Sloane for his opinion and advice.

  • Treatment
    Previous Treatment:
    Ongoing Treatment:
    Response:
  • More information
  • Medical problem reference
    Rheumatism, Stomach, Gallstones, Colics, Headache, Teeth

Letter 1849

Posted on August 2, 2016 by -

William Derham to Hans Sloane – July 7, 1712


Item info

Date: July 7, 1712
Author: William Derham
Recipient: Hans Sloane

Library: British Library, London
Manuscript: Sloane MS 4043
Folio: ff. 55-56


Original Page


Transcription

[fol. 56] Sr Upminster Jul 7 1712 I would have written sooner to you, but yt I thought to have been in town: but not being well able to do it this week I think it necessary to acquaint you yt I left your survey wth Mr Neville, wth my own ac- count of the Timber wrapt up with it. To fi- nish & render my account intelligible, I desire you to get a little red Ink agst I come to town (wch I intend God willing next 4 Senight) & then I will make all compleat. Another thing necessary to acquaint you & Dr Robinson with (Mr Rays most intimate frienfs) is That Mr Innes [Innys] (at the Princes-Arms) promised me to put Mr Rays Synops method. Av. & Pise. in- to the Press this very week, & I desire you both to see & approve of the Paper & Lr, because when I was in Town he could not shew me the Paper. I recommend the same Lr yt his Synop: Stirp. Brit. is printed in, yt it may make a portable Volume like yt, & I believe it will be absent yt size. When I was last in town I be- stirred my self, & got the MS for him, or else yt work might have lain unpublished, under the same pretence of ye MS being in Mr Petivers hands, which hath been the excuse near this Lr of an year I desire my humble service to Dr Tancred Robinson, & yt you will do me the favr to tell him I would have written to him about these matters, but I know not how to direct a Lr to him. It will be absolutely necessary also yt you should one or both of you review his little Tract de Re- spiratione, wch he Mr Ray intended to have printed with it, & as Mr Dale tells me, was somewhat fond of: But since the later & better dis- coveries, I am almost of opinion yt piece will not much credit our Friend, or improve mankind. As I go along in cor- recting the Press (unless some more able person would do it) I will draw up a compleat Index, wch Mr Ray did not do himself. I think I shewed you the Preface I have written for it, to give some acct of the work, yt reason of this late posthumous Publication of it, &c. If you or Dr Robinson have any farther commands, you can inform the Dr how to direct a Lr to his & Sr Your much obliged humble servant Wm Derham

Derham was a Church of England clergyman and a natural philosopher, interested in nature, mathematics, and philosophy. He frequently requested medical advice from Sloane, and likely served as a physician to his family and parishioners (Marja Smolenaars, Derham, William (16571735), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/7528, accessed 7 June 2011]).



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Letter 0370

Posted on August 2, 2016 by -

Samuel Dale to Samuel Smith – June 29, 1692


Item info

Date: June 29, 1692
Author: Samuel Dale
Recipient: Samuel Smith

Library: British Library, London
Manuscript: Sloane MS 4036
Folio: f. 130


Original Page


Transcription

Dale asks Smith to pass 6 botanical queries on to Sloane. Smith requests Sloane provide his answers ‘wth w’t convenient speed you can’. Samuel Dale was an apothecary, botanist, and physician who contributed several articles to the Philosophical Transactions. He was John Ray’s executor and good friend, and from Dale’s letters to Sloane we learn many details of Ray’s final moments (G. S. Boulger, Dale, Samuel (bap. 1659, d. 1739), rev. Juanita Burnby, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/7016, accessed 5 July 2013]). Samuel Smith apprenticed to the book trade in 1675 and was indentured to the bookseller Samuel Gellibrand followed by Moses Pitt. Smith joined the Stationers Company and became freeman of the company and then freeman of the city of London in 1682. Smith published the Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions from the beginning of his career and he and his partner Benjamin Walford were officially named ‘printers to the Royal Society’ in 1693 (Marja Smolenaars, Ann Veenhoff, Smith, Samuel (bap. 1658, d. 1707), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/63289, accessed 27 June 2013]).



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Letter 2716

Posted on August 2, 2016 by -

Henry Barham Sr. to Hans Sloane – April 30, 1724


Item info

Date: April 30, 1724
Author: Henry Barham Sr.
Recipient: Hans Sloane

Library: British Library, London
Manuscript: Sloane MS 4047
Folio: ff. 165-166


Original Page


Transcription

[fol. 165] Worthy Sr, Accoring to your Request I have Sent by the bearer (my one who makes Bold to pay Respects to you) Some Logwood Branches in to Flower, they Growing to Leward about a Hundred Miles from Spanish Town was forced to Imploy a Person to Get it who had not Skill to Lay the Branches Down Upon Paper in Good Order therefore it comes Soo rough, they being to Dry for the Attempt to Alter them therefore Sent them as I received them; The Logg wood when young makes the Best and Closest Fence of any Plant being very Prickly and always Green It Blossoms in January and the Seed Rope […] in the beginning of march Its Blossom hath a very expecting […] Pleasant Smell of a yellowish Colour the Head Beds […] and Other Flies […] are very Brusy a bout them when in full Blossom[.] Its Seed is in Bunches like our English Ash; wch you may Remember I Gave you Some of its Seeds when I was in England[.] Sr you may Remember that I once gave you a Perticular account of the Vertues of a Plant that Grows wch you Distinguish by the Name of Apocynum exectum folio Oblongo, flora umbovato, petalis cucunbis nellonis[.] your figure of this Plant is ever Exact wch is Vulgarly or Commonly Called Here Blood Flower for its Great vertues in Stopping of Blood either at the Nose Mouth or Anus as Col Howard who Frequents Old Man’s Cotty at Charring Cross[.] Here I Can Give you a Particular… to you Himself… Great in Stoping of His Gleets wch I saw Many […] Oxford I Went last to England when all Restringents and Balsamicks failed and Since I came over last to Jamaica a Gentleman About 60 years of Age Compained to me that He had Seen Trouble with an Old gleet for many years and nothing He Could meet with that would doo Him any Service[.] I Advised Him to take the Flowers of this Plants and Dry them very Well and make a Tea of them to Drink Morning and Night wch He Did and in about a Months Time made a Perfect Cure in So much that He Said A mane in England might get an Estate by it. But I have Observed within these few months that the Country People give the Juice of the Whole Plant, about 2 or 3 Spoonfuls to young People, and Purge them Smartly upwards and Downwards and forces a Way Worms to Admiration and Will have to to be the Epecacuany wch is Very erroneous that being a quite Different Plant But this last Practice with the Plant Startled me to See it purge so[.] I yet when I gave it Decocted for Bloody fluxes and Gleet it had no Such operation Pray your Opinion of it. I Beg the Favour of Adviseing my Son to a Learned and Honest Councillour of the Lane to Recover my Due if Possible as any Other Ways or means you Assist Him in Will Say greater Obligations upon me than I Shall be Capable to Return but Shall [fol. 166] make it my Endeavours who Always Prays for your Health and Happiness; And your most faithfully Obedient Humble Servant to Command Henry Barham I am in great expectation of your 2d Volume of the History of Jamaica April 30th 1724

Henry Barham (1670?-1726) was a botanist. He lived in Jamaica and corresponded with Sloane on the plant and animal life of the island. Parts of Barham’s letters to Sloane appeared in the latter’s Natural History of Jamaica (T. F. Henderson, Barham, Henry (1670?1726), rev. Anita McConnell, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/1374, accessed 13 June 2011]).



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