Chapter 4

Education, Women, Churchmen, and The Law

THE PLACE OF WOMEN IN MEDICINE

Women played a part in treating and caring for the ill and distressed in a number of ways during the century. A few women dispensed medicine and enjoyed reputations as doctors, but it was in the field of obstetrics and as midwives that they made their most important contributions. Although women did what might be described generally as nursing, their contribution in this area was relatively insignificant when compared with the importance of the female nurse today. Any discussion of the place of women in seventeenth-century medicine should note the relationship between women, witchcraft, and medicine.

Although the references leave no doubt of the existence of female doctors and dispensers of medicines, the mention of them is infrequent. Mrs. Mary Seal, the widow of a Dr. Power, for example, administered medicine to Richard Dunbar in 1700. The wife of Edward Good was sought out in 1678 to cure a head sore and another "doctress" impressed the Reverend John Clayton, who had some insights into medical science himself, with her ability to cure the bite of a rattlesnake by using the drug dittany. In the same year that Good's wife was sought to treat the head sore, a Mrs. Grendon dispensed medicine to an individual who had injured his eyes in a fight. The exact status of these women, however, is unknown; it is highly unlikely that the female practicing medicine enjoyed the professional standing of a Dr. Pott or a Dr. Bohun--an old female slave also appears in the record as a doctor.

With medical knowledge limited and antisepsis unknown, the expectant mother of the seventeenth century fared better with a midwife than she would have with a physician. The midwife, whose training consisted of experience and apprenticeship at best, allowed the birth to be as free from human interference as possible and did not do a pre-delivery infection-producing examination.

Both the fees and the prestige of the midwife, judging by contemporary records from other colonies, were high. Unfortunately, the early Virginia sources throw little light on the activities of the midwife in this colony. Among the scattered references from Virginia records are found charges of 100 pounds of tobacco for the service of a midwife; the presence of two midwives assisted by two nurses and other women at a single birth; the payment of twelve hens for obstetrical services; and the delivery of a bastard child by a midwife.

Nursing duties were probably taken on by both men and women in addition to their regular occupations. The duties consisted not only of tending the sick--and there is no reason to believe this was done under the supervision of a physician--but also of burying the dead and arranging the funerals. While the patient lived, the nurse prepared food, washed linen, and did other chores to make the patient comfortable. When death came, the nurse was "the good woman who shall dress me and put me in my coffin," and who provided "entertainment of those that came to bury him with 3 vollys of shott & diging his grave with the trouble of his funeral included."

The medical ramifications of witchcraft have been suggested. One of the most interesting Virginia court cases of the century had as its principal subject a woman accused of the power to cause sickness. In an age when weapon salve was wiped on the weapon and not the wound, and when astrology was intimately associated with the practice of medicine, it is not surprising to find, also, the witch and her power to cause disease. Goodwife Wright stood accused of such powers in the colony's general court on September 11, 1626.

Goodwife Wright had caused, according to her accusers, the illness of a husband, wife, and child out of a spirit of revenge; and she was able to prophesy deaths as well. The details of the case brought against this woman accused of witchcraft reveal the more bizarre medical practices of the time. Goodwife Wright expected to serve as the midwife but the expectant mother refused to employ her upon learning that Wright was left-handed. Soon after affronting Wright in such a manner, the mother complained that her breast "grew dangerouslie sore" and her husband and child both fell sick within a few weeks. With circumstantial evidence of this kind, suspicion had little difficulty in linking the midwife with the sicknesses.

Testimony revealed that on another occasion she had used her powers to counter the actions of another suspected witch. Having been informed that the other witch was causing the sickness, Wright had the ill person throw a red-hot horseshoe into her own urine. The result, according to witnesses was that the offending witch was "sick at harte" as long as the horseshoe was hot, and the sick person well when it had cooled.

CHURCHMEN AND MEDICINE

Medicine was associated in many minds not only with the powers of evil but also with the forces for good. The clergyman in colonial America often practiced medicine, and the layman in some localities of Virginia could turn to the local parson for medical assistance.

Throughout the early Christian era and the medieval period, medicine and religion had had a close relationship. The New Testament had numerous references to the healing of the sick by spiritual means, and a casual relationship between sin and physical affliction had been assumed by many persons for centuries before the seventeenth. The hand of God was still seen by many in physical phenomena, whether disease or the flight of a comet. Not only was there a supernatural relationship seen between the God of the church and disease, but also a natural one between medicine and the church clergy, for they had staffed the medical schools for centuries. It is not surprising, then, that the parson-physician was no stranger to the Virginia colony.

As early as 1619, Robert Pawlett, known to be a preacher, surgeon, and physician, came to Virginia. He was followed by other parson-physicians in Virginia and in other colonies. As late as the end of the eighteenth century, the wife of George Washington called on the Reverend Greene, M.D., for medical advice.

Among the most interesting in this long tradition of ministers who practiced medicine is the Reverend John Clayton whose activities have been noted. Other persons residing in Virginia and combining the role of clergyman with a considerable interest in medicine were Nathaniel Eaton, who had a degree in medicine, and John Banister who was an active naturalist. As a naturalist, he made an important study of the plants of Virginia (_Catalogue of Virginia Plants_) which added to the literature available for the dispenser of medicinal drugs. One of the founders of Presbyterianism in America, the Reverend Francis Makemie, who came to America in 1681 and died in Accomack County, Virginia, was described as a preacher, a doctor of medicine, a merchant, an attorney--and a disturber of government by the governor of New York.

LAW AND MEDICINE

Although the Crown did not follow the lead of the Company in providing care for the sick and unsheltered, the authorities after 1624 did have the state take an interest in medicine to the extent of passing laws dealing with medical problems and situations. These laws were primarily concerned with the collection and charging of fees, but also provided for the censure of the physician or surgeon neglecting his patient.

On four occasions during the century the Assembly attempted to regulate the excessive and immoderate rates of physicians and surgeons. The chief example used to convey the injustice of fees for visits and drugs was that many colonists preferred to allow their servants to hazard a recovery than to call a medical man. Although an inhumane attitude, the colonists reasoned that the physician or surgeon would charge more than the purchase price of the servant.

The act of 1657-58 reveals this attitude and throws some light on the medical practice of the century. (Similar acts had been passed in 1639 and in 1645 and would be passed in 1661-62.) By the will of the Assembly, the layman had the right to bring the physician or surgeon into court if the charge for "paines, druggs or medicines" was thought to be unreasonable. The surgeon or physician had in court to declare under oath the true value of drugs and medicines administered, and then the court decided the just compensation.

The law went on to declare that:

Where it shall be sufficiently proved in any of the said courts that a phisitian or chirurgeon hath neglected his patient, or that he hath refused (being thereunto required) his helpe and assistance to any person or persons in sicknes or extremitie, that the said phisitian or chirurgeon shall be censured by the court for such his neglect or refusall.

The legislators also gave the physician or surgeon protection by providing that their accounts could be pleaded against and recovered from the estate of a deceased patient--suggesting that patients were not prompt enough in paying their bills (or perhaps did not survive treatment long enough to do so). Court records show that the medical men often took advantage of this provision for collection.

A measure enacted in 1692 indicated a more sympathetic attitude on the part of the legislators toward the physicians and surgeons. While in the earlier acts preventing exorbitant fees the court had been ordered to decide upon just compensation, the later act allowed the physician or surgeon to charge whatever he declared under oath in court to be just for medicines. Nor did the act of 1692 make reference to "rigorous though unskilful" or "griping and avaricious" physicians and surgeons as had the earlier laws.

References by the colonial Assembly to exorbitant fees were not without a basis in fact. The conventional charge for the physician's visit, according to Dr. Wyndham Blanton, was thirty-five to fifty pounds of tobacco and on occasions the physician, or surgeon, must have exceeded this fee. An approximate estimate of the value of these visits in present-day terms would be between twenty and twenty-five dollars. The cost of medical care was even greater when an unusually large amount of drugs was dispensed. It is not surprising that many masters did not provide the services of a physician or surgeon for their servants; nor that medical attention was given by persons without professional status. Although these charges seem high, it must be taken into account that because of the great distances between communities and even between homes, the physician or surgeon could make only a small number of visits each week.

County records give many examples of the fees of physicians and surgeons. Of 145 medical bills entered in the York County records between 1637 and 1700, the average bill was for 752 pounds of tobacco, or a little less than one laborer could produce in a year. Other fees were: 400 pounds of tobacco for six visits; 300 pounds of tobacco for three visits and five days attendance; 1,000 pounds of tobacco for twenty days of attendance "going ounce a weeke ... being fourteen miles"; and 600 pounds for twelve daily visits. At the time these charges were made, tobacco brought between two and three cents per pound, or the equivalent of approximately fifty cents today.

The surgeon administering the clyster or phlebotomy, those commonly resorted to "remedies," could be expected to charge thirty pounds of tobacco for the first and twenty pounds for the second. The surgeon, and the physician, often charged from twenty to fifty pounds of tobacco for a drug prescription.

In 1658, Dr. John Clulo presented a bill to John Gosling in York County which he itemized as follows (in pounds of tobacco):

For 2 glisters [clysters] 040 For a glister 030 For a potion cord.[ial] 036 For an astringent potion 035 For my visitts paines & attendance ... For a glistere 030 For an astringent potion 035 For a cord. astringent bole 036 For a bole as before 036 For a purging potion 050 For a [cordial julep] 120 For a potion as before 036

Not only does Dr. Clulo's bill give examples of fees charged, but it supports the contention that the substance of medical treatment during the century was bloodletting, purging, and prescribing drugs.

Although the physicians of colonial Virginia did charge well for their services, it should be noted that they were in demand. Their patients, this would indicate, considered their services of great value, any subsequent protests notwithstanding.

THE EDUCATION OF PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS

Since the physicians and surgeons did make substantial charges and since the educated layman could buy his own books on medicine and practice what he read or since the uneducated could turn to a neighbor with medical knowledge or to a quack, the question arises as to why the services of professional surgeons and physicians were in such demand. Part of the answer lies in the professional's experience, but even in a colony without a medical school it also lies in the education and training received by the professional.

There were several ways in which a seventeenth-century Virginia physician could acquire his education or training. He could have received a medical degree in England or on the continent and then gone to America. On the other hand, he might have learned without formal education--perhaps by attending lectures and by experience--and then established himself in Virginia where he was accorded professional status. A man born in Virginia could return to the Old World for training or formal education and then practice in Virginia. Also, a common manner of becoming a physician or surgeon in Virginia, which was without medical schools, was by apprenticeship. Finally, the importance of books--imported from Europe--as a means to medical education should not be minimized.

To be officially licensed for practice, the requirements in England were high--those in London especially so. The following excerpt from the statutes of the College of Physicians of London demonstrates how demanding the educational standards for seventeenth-century English physicians could be:

First, let them be examined in the physiologick part, and the very rudiments of medicine, and in this examination let questions be propounded out of the books concerning elements, temperaments, the use of parts, anatomy, natural powers and faculties, and other parts of natural medicine.

Secondly let him be examined in the pathologick part, or concerning the causes, differences, symptoms and signs of diseases, which physicians make use of to know the essence of diseases; and in this examination let questions be proposed out of books concerning the art of physick, of the places affected, of the differences of diseases and symptoms, of feavers, of the pubes, of the books of prognosticks of Hippocrates, &c.

Thirdly let him be examined concerning the use and exercise of medicine, or the reason of healing; and let that be done out of the books concerning preservation of health, of the method of healing, of the reason of diet in acute diseases, of simple medicines, of crises, of the aphorisms of Hyppocrates, and other things of that kind, which relate to the use of healing; for example sake, what caution to be observed in purging? in what persons? with what medicine? and in what vein, those things ought to be done? Likewise, what is the use of narcoticks and sleeping medicines? and what caution is to be observed in them? what is the position and site of the internal places? and by what passages medicines come to there? what is the use of clysters, what kind of vomits, the danger, kind and measure?

Under the London Company, the physicians and surgeons in Virginia had the same education, training, and met the same standards as their counterparts in England. This was, in part, because the Company had good reason to supply adequate medical service, and because the men sent were but Englishmen transplanted to America. Walter Russell, who came to Virginia in 1608 was a "Doctour of Physicke" and Lawrence Bohun, De la Warr's physician, had the same degree. Pott, who succeeded Bohun as physician-general of Virginia in 1621, came recommended as a Master of Arts well-practiced in surgery and physics.

After the Company's charter was annulled, few physicians or surgeons with the advanced medical degrees came to Virginia. Some of the persons, however, who practiced medicine in Virginia without medical degrees had acquired skills and knowledge in Europe or England before coming to the New World.

Patrick Napier who came to Virginia about 1655 as an indentured servant and subsequently had a large medical practice, probably learned his profession in England or on the Continent, as might have Francis Haddon, another who came under terms of indenture and who later, also, had a considerable medical practice. To these two examples of persons with training and experience acquired prior to their arrival in America might be added the similar experiences of John Williams and John Inman.

Medical knowledge and practices brought over from England were cross-fertilized with the European even in the New World. While the majority of newcomers were Englishmen, French, German, and other European physicians and surgeons came to Virginia. These European medical men appear, in general, to have prospered in Virginia and were anxious to become naturalized "denizens to this country."

George Hacke, born in Cologne, Germany, settled in Northampton County, Virginia, in 1653 and was known as a doctor and practitioner of medicine. He was typical of the European-trained medical man settling in Virginia in becoming naturalized and in leaving a considerable estate, including thousands of acres of land. Little is known of his medical activities and interests except that he was summoned to treat the victim of a duel and that he left a large library which probably included volumes on medicine.

Paul Micou, a young French physician who seems to have acquired his education abroad, settled on the shores of the Rappahannock river, near a place afterward called Port Micou, during the last decade of the seventeenth century. Cultured and educated, he soon won prominence and wealth as a physician (and surgeon), attorney, and merchant. County records in Virginia make numerous references to suits brought by him for nonpayment of fees, suggesting an extensive practice.

Because so many of the doctors and surgeons of seventeenth-century Virginia are given only slight mention in the records, it is impossible to know whether, in most cases, they had acquired their skills and educations before coming to Virginia, or even whether they were born in the New World. Nor is it known how many young men born in Virginia went back to England or Europe to study medicine; a reference made by the famous English surgeon, John Woodall, indicates that a Virginian named Wake may have studied under him in London.

Within the Virginia county records, however, can be found evidence indicating that a common method of learning the profession was by apprenticeship. One interesting example of the contract between apprentice and surgeon survives in the records of Surry County, Virginia; made in 1657, it bound Charles Clay to Stephen Tickner, surgeon, for a term of seven years. Clay swore to serve his master in whatever surgical or medical duties he was assigned, and Tickner promised to use his best skill and judgment to teach his apprentice whatever he knew of the art. Another contract for apprenticeship was made between Richard Townshend and the London Company's well-known Dr. Pott. This relationship included a breach of contract that occurred not infrequently between master and apprentice: Townshend argued in court that Pott was not teaching him the "art & misterye" for which he was bound.

As an apprentice, the would-be physician or surgeon could gather herbs for his master and assist him in treating the sick. If the apprentice could read, or if the master would teach him, then the novice could study the medical books in the doctor's library. Not only were volumes on medicine available, but in the libraries of the better-educated medical men, the apprentice could also familiarize himself with other fields of learning.

Dr. Pott had a reputation for knowing Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and must have imparted much of his learning to Richard Townshend, his apprentice. Such would seem to be the case in view of the facts of Townshend's life. He became an apprentice to Pott in 1621 and by 1636 he was a member of the colony's highest political body, the council, and at the time of his death he possessed a considerable amount of land. In a day when schooling was hard to come by, apprenticeship to an educated man held great advantages.

Unfortunately catalogues of the libraries of medical men have not survived. There is proof, however, that physicians and surgeons did not neglect opportunities to collect volumes on medicine published in England and Europe. If utilized, these books could have helped offset the lack of a formal education in a university or medical school. Dr. Henry Willoughby of Rappahannock County, Virginia, left forty-four books on "phisick" in his estate. Dr. John Holloway, a leading physician of Accomack County, Virginia, from 1633 until his death in 1643, left thirteen books on surgery and medicine, all in English or Latin. Dr. Henry Andrews of York County had twenty books in Latin on medicine.

A great number of Virginians--some of them prominent--who did not practice medicine had, nonetheless, large collections of books on the subject. This would indicate that many persons resorted to medical treatment without the help of a professional. With fees high, distances great, and well-trained doctors scarce, self-reliance is not surprising. Many planters and their wives must have made a superficial study of medicine; certainly the mistress of the house visiting sick servants and slaves is a familiar historical picture.

Among the medical books in such libraries were volumes on the general subjects of medicine (physick) and surgery, anatomy, gout, scurvy, distillation, and natural magic. Common in the libraries of the laymen were books recommending specific drugs for various symptoms of diseases. The long title of one volume in a Virginia library read, "Method of physick, containing the causes, signes, and cures of inward diseases in man's body from the head to the foote. Whereunto is added the forme and rule of making remedies and medicines, which our physitions commonly use at this day, with the proportion, quantity, and names of each medicine."

The importance of medical volumes to the lay library is indicated by the inclusion of two in the supplies provided by a London agent for a Virginia plantation in 1620-21. William S. Powell, in a recent study of books in Virginia before 1624, found that the agent chose _The French Chirurgerye_, published in English in 1597, and the _Enchiridion Medicinae_, first published in 1573.

In spite of medical books, the apprenticeships, training in Europe or England, and the demand for medical services despite a high fee, it is possible to overestimate the competence of the seventeenth-century Virginia doctor even by the standards of his own century. An observation made by William Byrd II early in the next century tends to reduce the stature of the medical man.

"Here be some men," Byrd wrote, "indeed that are call'd doctors; but they are generally discarded surgeons of ships, that know nothing above very common remedys. They are not acquainted enough with plants or other parts of natural history, to do any service to the world...." Byrd may have been prejudiced by his father who, although believing himself facing death, still did not call a physician.