Description
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
Author: Alanna Skuse
Publisher: Oneworld Publications
Published: 2/3/2026
Pages: 384
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.08 lbs
Size: 8.83″ H x 5.7″ L x 1.34″ W
ISBN: 9781836430773
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