Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-77c78cf97d-5vn5w Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-04-24T08:16:31.804Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Part XI - Medicine

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 August 2019

By
Mary Fissell
Edited by
Bruce R. Smith
Edited in association with
Katherine Rowe
With
Ton Hoenselaars ,
Akiko Kusunoki ,
Andrew Murphy  and
Aimara da Cunha Resende
Bruce R. Smith
Affiliation:
University of Southern California
Katherine Rowe
Affiliation:
Smith College, Massachusetts
Ton Hoenselaars
Affiliation:
Universiteit Utrecht, The Netherlands
Akiko Kusunoki
Affiliation:
Tokyo Woman’s Christian University, Japan
Andrew Murphy
Affiliation:
Trinity College Dublin
Aimara da Cunha Resende
Affiliation:
Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil
Get access

Keywords

astrologyBanister, Johnbarber-surgeonsBright, Timothydomestic healersForman, SimonFrench poxGalenic medicineGeminus, ThomasHippocratic medicinehumoral theoryHester, JohnJorden, Edwardmedical marketplacemidwivesNapier, RichardnonnaturalsParacelsian medicineParé, AmbroiseplaguePurchas, Samuelsympathetic medicinetreacle (theriac)Vesalius, Andreaswise womenapothecarybarber-surgeondietdrugsempiricsgardenherbherbalhousehold medicinehumoral theoryhumorskeeperking’s evilking’s touchmateria medicamidwifenonnaturalsnursephysic gardenphysicianplaguerecipereceiptremediessimplesurgeonsyphiliswet nursearteriesbilebirthingbloodboodlettingbraincholergestationhearthumorslactationlivermacrocosmmenstruationmicrocosmnervesone-sex bodyphlegmpurgingsoultemperamentveinsanimalsbiologyeye diseaseFracastoro, Girolomogerm theoryHarriot, ThomasmedicineNew WorldpearlsplantsPlinysciencesongsyphilisThe TempestAristotleGalen“generation”geohumoralismgreensicknessHippocrateshumoral balanceleaky vesselsmenstruationMontaigne, MichelParé, Ambroisereligion and humorsexual pleasureable-bodiedafflictionAll’s Well That Ends WellangerAs You Like ItBibleblindnessbloodbodycharitycholercontagioncrueltydebilitydeformitydesiredestitutiondisabilitydiseasedisorderdumbepilepsyethicsfeverGalenGenesisGodHamletHenry VIhumorsimpairmentindigenceinfectioninjuryinsanityinsomniainsultJulius CaesarKing LearLaviniaMacbethmadnessmaimmasculinitymedicinemelancholymetamorphosesmiasmamoralitymutilationOthelloOvidPhilomelpassionphlegmphysiologyplaguepovertypunishmentrevengeRichard IIIRomeo and JulietsinSodomiteSonnetssufferingsympathysymptomsyphilistemperamentTitus AndronicusTwelfth NightTwo Noble Kinsmenvenereal diseaseVenus and Adonisanalysisanatomydissectionepitomemedicinerhetoricviolenceapothecariesaurum potabilebloodlettingCollege of Physicians of Londoncommon remediescompoundsdietempiricsGalenHippocrateshot bathhumoral theoryhysteriathe king’s evilmelancholymadnessParacelsusParé, Ambroisephysiciansthe “pox”purgessurgeonssyphilistherapiesvomitwitchcraftwomenwoundsastrological medicineBradley, A. C.Bright, TimothyColeridge, Samuel TaylorThe Comedy of ErrorsDu Laurens, AndréGalenic medicineGammer Gurton’s NedleGerard, JohnHamletHarsnett, Samuelherbal medicineHippocratic medicinehumoral medicineJorden, EdwardKing LearKnights, L. C.Macbethmadnessmelancholymental illnessMuir, Kennethpassionsreligious melancholyThe Spanish TragedyTheobald, LewisTwelfth NightThe Two Noble KinsmenWilde, OscarwitchcraftWright, ThomasThe Anatomy of MelancholyBurton, Robertchildrendemonic possessiondemonologydevilsThe Discoverie of Witchcraftdiseaseepilepsyfalling sicknessHarsnett, SamuelHobbes, ThomashysteriaJorden, EdwardLemnius, Levinusmelancholymental illnessSatanScot, Reginaldsuffocation of the motherviolence

Information

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Guide to the Worlds of Shakespeare , pp. 761 - 828
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2016

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Sources cited

Barrough, Philip. The methode of phisicke, conteyning the causes, signes, and cures of invvard diseases in mans body from the head to the foote. London: Thomas Vautroullier dwelling in the Blacke-friars by Lud-gate, 1583.Google Scholar
Becon, Thomas. The sycke mans salue. VVherin the faithfull christians may learne both how to behaue them selues paciently and thankefully, in the tyme of sickenes. London: Iohn Day, dwelling ouer Aldersgate beneath Saint Martins, [1561].Google Scholar
Cotta, John. A Short Discoverie of the Unobserved Dangers of Severall Sorts of Ignorant and Unconsiderate Practitioners of Physicke. London: [R. Field] for William Iones, and Richard Boyle dwelling in the Blacke-Friers, 1612.Google Scholar
Harvey, William. Exercitatio anatomica de motu cordis et sanguinis in animalibus. Frankfurt: Sumptibus G. Fitzeri, 1628.Google Scholar
Here begynneth a newe boke of medecynes intytulyd or callyd the Treasure of pore men, whiche sheweth many dyuerse good medecines for dyuerse certayn dysseases. London: In the pultre at the longe shoppe by saynt Myldredys church dore by [J. Rastell for] me Rycherd Bankes, [1526?].Google Scholar
Markham, Gervase. Countrey contentments, in two bookes: ... The second intituled, The English husvvife: containing the inward and outward vertues which ought to be in a compleate woman London: I[ohn] B[eale] for R. Iackson, and are to be sold at his shop neere Fleet-street Conduit, 1615.Google Scholar
Monardes, Nicolás. Ioyfull nevves out of the newe founde worlde, wherein is declared the rare and singuler vertues of diuerse and sundrie hearbes, trees, oyles, plantes, and stones ... Englished by Ihon Frampton marchaunt. London: In Poules Churche-yarde, by Willyam Norton, 1577.Google Scholar
Park, Katharine. The Secrets of Women. New York: Zone Books, 2006.Google Scholar
Pelling, Margaret. Medical Conflicts in Early Modern London: Patronage, Physicians, and Irregular Practitioners, 1550–1640. Oxford: Clarendon, 2003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Purchas, Samuel. Purchas His Pilgrimage, or Relations of the World and the Religions observed in all ages. London: Printed by William Stansby for Henrie Fetherstone, and are to be sold at his shoppe in Pauls Church-yard at the signe of the Rose, 1613.Google Scholar
Vesalius, Andreas. De humani corporis fabrica libri septem. Basel: Ex officina I. Oporini, 1543.Google Scholar

Further reading

Arrizabalaga, Jon, et al., eds. The Great Pox. New Haven: Yale UP, 1997.Google Scholar
Fissell, Mary E. Vernacular Bodies: The Politics of Reproduction in Early Modern England. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, Jonathan Gil. Foreign Bodies and the Politic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Kassell, Lauren. Medicine and Magic in Elizabethan London: Simon Forman, Astrologer, Alchemist, and Physician. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005.Google Scholar
MacDonald, Michael. Mystical Bedlam: Madness, Anxiety, and Healing in Seventeenth-Century England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.Google Scholar
Paster, Gail Kern. The Body Embarrassed: Drama and the Disciplines of Shame in Early Modern England. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1993.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pollock, Linda. With Faith in Physic: The Life of a Tudor Gentlewoman. London: Collins and Brown, 1993.Google Scholar
Porter, Roy, ed. Patients and Practitioners. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.Google Scholar
Sawday, Jonathan. The Body Emblazoned: Dissection and the Human Body in Renaissance Culture. London: Routledge, 1995.Google Scholar
Slack, Paul. The Impact of the Plague in Tudor and Stuart England. London: Routledge, 1985.Google Scholar
Webster, Charles. Paracelsus: Medicine, Magic and Mission at the End of Time. New Haven: Yale UP, 2008.Google Scholar

Sources cited

Mrs.Corlyon, A Booke of divers Medecines. [Receipt Book]. 1606. Wellcome Library MS.213.Google Scholar
Gerard, John. The herball, or Generall historie of plantes. London: 1597.Google Scholar
Hoby, Margaret. The Private Life of an Elizabethan Lady: The Diary of Lady Margaret Hoby, 1599–1605. Ed. Moody, Joanna. Stroud: Sutton, 1998.Google Scholar
Josselin, Ralph. The Diary of Ralph Josselin, 1616–1683. Ed. Macfarlane, Alan. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1976.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Markham, Gervase. The English Housewife. Ed. Best, Michael R.. Montreal: McGill–Queen’s UP, 1986.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pollock, Linda A. With Faith and Physic: The Life of a Tudor Gentlewoman, Lady Grace Mildmay, 1552–1620. New York: St. Martin’s, 1993.Google Scholar
Wear, Andrew. Knowledge and Practice in English Medicine, 1550–1680. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Further reading

Barroll, Leeds. Politics, Plague, and Shakespeare’s Theater: The Stuart Years. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1991.Google Scholar
Beier, Lucinda M. Sufferers and Healers: The Experience of Illness in Seventeenth-Century England. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1987.Google Scholar
Conrad, Lawrence I., et al. The Western Medical Tradition, 800 BC to AD 1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Evenden, Doreen. The Midwives of Seventeenth-Century London. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Harkness, Deborah E. “A View from the Streets: Women and Medical Work in Elizabethan London.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 82.1 (2008): 52–85.Google Scholar
Kerwin, William. Beyond the Body: The Boundaries of Medicine and English Renaissance Drama. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 2005.Google Scholar
Laroche, Rebecca. Medical Authority and Englishwomen’s Herbal Texts, 1550–1650. Burlington: Ashgate, 2009.Google Scholar
Leong, Elaine. “Making Medicines in the Early Modern Household.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 82.1 (2008): 145–68.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Moss, Stephanie, and Peterson, Kaara L.. Disease, Diagnosis and Cure on the Early Modern Stage. Burlington: Ashgate, 2004.Google Scholar
Munkhoff, Richelle. “Searchers of the Dead: Authority, Marginality, and the Interpretation of Plague in England, 1574–1665.” Gender and History 11.1 (1999): 1–29.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pelling, Margaret. The Common Lot: Sickness, Medical Occupations and the Urban Poor in Early Modern England. New York: Longman, 1998.Google Scholar
Siena, Kevin P. Venereal Disease, Hospitals and the Urban Poor: London’s “Foul Wards,” 1600–1800. Rochester: U of Rochester P, 2004.Google Scholar
Slack, Paul. The Impact of Plague in Tudor and Stuart England. Oxford: Clarendon, 1985.Google Scholar
Wilson, F. P. The Plague in Shakespeare’s London. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1927.Google Scholar

Sources cited

Burton, Robert. Anatomy of Melancholy. 3 vols. Everyman’s Library. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1932. Rpt. 1961.Google Scholar
Donne, John. Divine Poems of John Donne. Ed. Gardner, Helen. Oxford: Clarendon, 1952.Google Scholar
Donne, John. Elegies and the Songs and Sonnets of John Donne. Ed. Gardner, Helen. Oxford: Clarendon, 1965.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harvey, William. Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus. Frankfort: 1628.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Further reading

Adelman, Janet. “Making Defect Perfection: Shakespeare and the One-Sex Model.” Enacting Gender on the English Renaissance Stage. Ed. Comensoli, Viviana and Russell, Anne. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1999. 23–52.Google Scholar
Hillman, David, and Mazzio, Carla, eds. The Body in Parts: Fantasies of Corporality in Early Modern Europe. New York: Routledge, 1997.Google Scholar
Hoeniger, F. David. Medicine and Shakespeare in the English Renaissance. Newark: U of Delaware P, 1992.Google Scholar
Laqueur, Thomas. Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1990.Google Scholar
MacLean, Ian. The Renaissance Notion of Woman: A Study in the Fortunes of Scholasticism and Medical Science in European Intellectual Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980.Google Scholar
Park, Katherine. “Cadden, Laqueur, and the ‘One-Sex Body.’” Medieval Feminist Forum 46.1 (2010): 96–100.Google Scholar
Paster, Gail Kern. The Body Embarrassed: Drama and Disciplines of Shame in Early Modern England. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1993.Google Scholar
Sawday, Jonathan. The Body Emblazoned: Dissection and the Human Body in Renaissance Culture. London: Routledge, 1995.Google Scholar

Sources cited

Anglerie, Peter Martyr of. The Decades of the Newe World of East India. Trans. Eden, Richard. London: 1555.Google Scholar
Benzoni, Girolamo. Histoire Nouvelle du Nouveau Monde. Geneva: 1579.Google Scholar
Boodt, Anselmus Boetius. Gemmarum et Lapidum Historia. Hanover: 1609.Google Scholar
Bullough, Geoffrey, ed. Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare. 8 vols. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957–75.Google Scholar
Cardanus, Girolamo. De Subilatate Libri XXI. Basel: 1550.Google Scholar
Cavell, Stanley. Disowning Knowledge in Six Plays of Shakespeare. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Frye, Northrop. Northrop Frye on Shakespeare. Ed. Sandler, Robert. New Haven: Yale UP, 1986.Google Scholar
Gesner, Conrad. Historiae Animalium Liber IV. Qui est de Piscium & Aquatium animantium natura. Tiguri: 1558.Google Scholar
Gould, Stephen Jay. “Syphilis and the Shepherd of Atlantis.” Natural History 109 (2000): 38–48.Google Scholar
Sir Hawkins, Richard. The Observations of Sir Richard Hawkins Knight, in his Voyage into the South Sea. Anno Domini 1593. London: 1622.Google Scholar
Hoeniger, F. David. “How Plants and Animals Were Studied in the Mid-Sixteenth Century.” Science and the Arts in the Renaissance. Ed. Shirley, John W. and Hoeniger, F. David. Washington: Folger Shakespeare Library, 1985. 130–48.Google Scholar
Pliny, . The Historie of the World, Commonly Called The Natvrall Historie of C. Plinivs Secundus, Translated into English by Philemon Holland. London: 1601.Google Scholar
Rondeletius, Gulielmus [Guillaume Rondelet]. Libri de Piscibus Marinis. In two parts: second part dated 1555 and titled Universae aquatilium Historiae pars altera, cum veris ipsorum Imaginibus. Lugdini: 1554–55.Google Scholar
Strachey, William. “A True Reportory of the Wracke and Redemption of Sir Thomas Gates, Knight.” Purchas his Pilgrimes. Part 4, Book 9, Chapter 6. London: 1625.Google Scholar
Teixeira, Pedro. The Travels of Pedro Teixeira, with his ‘Kings of Harmuz’ and Extracts from his ‘Kings of Persia.’ Trans. and annot. Sinclair, William F., with further notes and an Introduction by Ferguson, Donald. London: Hakluyt Society, 1902.Google Scholar
Webster, John. The Works. Ed. Gunby, David, Carnegie, David, and Hammond, Antony. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.Google Scholar

Further reading

Gillispie, Charles Coulston, ed. Dictionary of Scientific Biography. 16 vols. New York: Scribner, 1971.Google Scholar
Hunt, Maurice. “Homeopathy in Shakespearean Comedy and Romance.” Ball State University Forum 29 (1988): 45–57.Google Scholar
Hunt, Maurice. “Shakespeare’s Tragic Homeopathy.” Shakespeare: Text, Subtext, and Context. Ed. Dotterer, Ronald. London: Associated UP, 1989. 77–84.Google Scholar
Qualtiere, Louis F. and Slights, William W. E.. “Contagion and Blame in Early Modern England: The Case of the French Pox.” Literature and Medicine 22 (2003): 1–24.Google Scholar
Sokol, B. J. A Brave New World of Knowledge: Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Early Modern Epistemology. London: Associated UP, 2003.Google Scholar
Sokol, B. J. “The Problem of Assessing Thomas Harriot’s A briefe and true report of his Discoveries in North America.” Annals of Science 51 (1994): 1–15.Google Scholar
Sokol, B. J. “Shakespearian Sources in ‘Obscure’ Continental European Publications.” Not of an Age, but for all Time: Shakespeare across Lands and Ages. Ed. Coelsch-Foisner, S. and Szonyi, G. E.. Salzburg: Braumuller, 2004. 65–75.Google Scholar
Sokol, B. J., and Sokol, Mary. “The Tempest and Legal Justification of Plantation in Virginia.” Shakespeare Yearbook 7 (1996): 353–80.Google Scholar
Stensgaard, Richard K. “All’s Well That Ends Well and the Galenico-Paracelsian Controversy.” Renaissance Quarterly 25 (1972): 173–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thorndike, Lynn. A History of Magic and Experimental Science. 8 vols. New York: Columbia UP, 1941–58.Google Scholar

Sources cited

Batman, Steven. Batman Uppon Bartholome, his booke De Proprietatibus rerum, newly corrected, enlarged, and amended. Trans. Trevisa, John. London: 1582.Google Scholar
Best, George. “A True Discourse of the Three Voyages of Discoverie.” The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries. By Hakluyt, Richard. Vol. 5. 1600. London: J. M. Dent, 1927. 47–96.Google Scholar
Botero, Giovanni. Relations of the Most Famous Kingdomes and Common-wealths thorowout the World. Trans. , R. I. London: 1630.Google Scholar
Camden, William. Remains Concerning Britain. London: 1605.Google Scholar
Fontanus, Nicholas. The Woman’s Doctor. London: 1652.Google Scholar
Gerald of Wales. Description of Wales. Trans. Sir Hoare, Richard Colt. The Historical Works of Giraldus Cambrensis. Ed. Wright, Thomas. London: George Bell and Sons, 1881.Google Scholar
Goodall, Baptist. The tryall of trauell. London: 1630.Google Scholar
Harrison, William. The Description of Britaine. Holinshed, Raphael. The First and Second Volumes of the Chronicles. London: 1587.Google Scholar
Huarte, Juan. The Examination of Men’s Wits. 1594. Trans. Carew, Richard. Gainesville: Scholars’ Facsimiles and Reprints, 1959.Google Scholar
Jordan, Winthrop D. White over Black: American Attitudes toward the Negro, 1550–1812. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1968.Google Scholar
Jorden, Edward. A briefe discourse of a disease called the suffocation of the mother Written vppon occasion which hath beene of late taken thereby, to suspect possesion of an euill spirit, or some such like supernaturall power. Wherin is declared that diuers strange actions and passions of the body of man, which in the common opinion, are imputed to the diuell, haue their true naturall causes, and do accompanie this disease. London: John Windet, 1603.Google Scholar
Laqueur, Thomas. Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1990.Google Scholar
Paster, Gail Kern. The Body Embarrassed: Drama and the Disciplines of Shame in Early Modern England. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1993.Google Scholar
Paster, Gail Kern. “The Unbearable Coldness of Female Being: Women’s Imperfection and the Humoral Economy.” English Literary Renaissance 28 (1998): 416–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perkins, William. The Whole Treatise of Cases of Conscience. [Cambridge]: Printed by I. Legat, 1606.Google Scholar
Wright, Thomas. The Passions of the Minde in Generall. London: 1604.Google Scholar

Further reading

Churchill, Wendy D. “The Medical Practice of the Sexed Body: Women, Men, and Disease in Britain, circa 1600–1740.” Social History of Medicine 18.1 (2005): 3–22.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Crawford, Patricia. “Sexual Knowledge in England, 1500–1750.” Sexual Knowledge, Sexual Science: The History of Attitudes to Sexuality. Ed. Porter, Roy and Teich, Mikulas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. 82–106.Google Scholar
Fletcher, Anthony. Gender, Sex, and Subordination in England, 1500–1800. New Haven: Yale UP, 1996.Google Scholar
Floyd-Wilson, Mary. English Ethnicity and Race in Early Modern Drama. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Floyd-Wilson, Mary, and Sullivan, Garrett A. Jr., eds. Environment and Embodiment in Early Modern England. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, Kim F. Things of Darkness: Economies of Race and Gender in Early Modern England. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1996.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maclean, Ian. The Renaissance Notion of Woman: A Study in the Fortunes of Scholasticism and Medical Science in European Intellectual Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paster, Gail Kern, Rowe, Katherine, and Floyd-Wilson, Mary, eds. Reading the Early Modern Passions: Essays in the Cultural History of Emotion. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 2004.Google Scholar
Smith, Hilda. “Gynecology and Ideology in Seventeenth-Century England.” Liberating Women’s History: Theoretical and Critical Essays. Ed. Carroll, Berenice A.. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1976. 97–114.Google Scholar

Sources cited

Greene, Robert. A Disputation. London: 1592.Google Scholar
Harman, Thomas. A Caveat for Common Cursitors. London: 1567.Google Scholar
Harris, Jonathan Gil. Foreign Bodies and the Body Politic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Jordan, W. K. Philanthropy in England, 1480–1660: A Study of the Changing Pattern of English Social Aspiration. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1959.Google Scholar
Phayre, Thomas. A Treatise of the Pestilence. London: 1603.Google Scholar
Rouse, W. H. D., ed. Shakespeare’s Ovid: Arthur Golding’s Translation of the Metamorphoses. New York: Norton, 1966.Google Scholar
Siebers, Tobin. Disability Theory. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2008.Google Scholar
Stearns, Justin. Infectious Ideas. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2011.Google Scholar

Further reading

Burnett, Mark Thornton. Constructing ‘Monsters’ in Shakespearean Drama and Early Modern Culture. New York: Palgrave, 2002.Google Scholar
Daston, Lorraine, and Park, Katharine. Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150–1750. New York: Zone Books, 1998.Google Scholar
Disabled Shakespeares. Spec. issue of Disability Studies Quarterly 29.4 (2009).Google Scholar
Fumerton, Patricia. Unsettled: The Culture of Mobility and the Working Poor in Early Modern England. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2006.Google Scholar
Healy, Margaret. Fictions of Disease in Early Modern England: Bodies, Plagues and Politics. London: Palgrave, 2002.Google Scholar
Hoeniger, F. David. Medicine and Shakespeare in the English Renaissance. Newark: U of Delaware P, 1992.Google Scholar
MacDonald, Michael. Mystical Bedlam: Madness, Anxiety, and Healing in Seventeenth-Century England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.Google Scholar
Milburn, Colin. “Syphilis in Faerie Land: Edmund Spenser and the Syphilography of Elizabethan England.” Criticism 46 (2004): 597–632.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, David T., and Snyder, Sharon L.. Narrative Prosthesis: Disability and the Dependencies of Discourse. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2001.Google Scholar
Neely, Carol Thomas. Distracted Subjects: Madness and Gender in Shakespeare and Early Modern Culture. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2004.Google Scholar
Paster, Gail Kern. The Body Embarrassed: Drama and the Disciplines of Shame in Early Modern England. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1993.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schoenfeldt, Michael. Bodies and Selves in Early Modern England: Physiology and Inwardness in Spenser, Shakespeare, Herbert, and Milton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Torrey, Michael. “‘The Plain Devil and Dissembling Looks’: Ambivalent Physiognomy and Shakespeare’s Richard III.” English Literary Renaissance 30.2 (2000): 123–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, F. P. The Plague in Shakespeare’s London. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1963.Google Scholar

Sources cited

Adams, Thomas. The Black Devil. London: 1615.Google Scholar
Bell, Thomas. Anatomy of Popish Tyranny. London: 1603.Google Scholar
Burton, Robert. The Anatomy of Melancholy. Oxford: 1621.Google Scholar
Dekker, Thomas. A Knight’s Conjuring. London: 1607.Google Scholar
Greene, Robert. Menaphon. London: 1589.Google Scholar
Harvey, William. Lectures on the Whole of Anatomy. Trans. O’Malley, C. D., Poynter, F. N. L., and Russell, K. F.. Berkeley: U of California P, 1961.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mainardi, Augusto. Anatomy of the Mass. Strasbourg: 1556.Google Scholar
Marston, John. The Insatiate Countess. Ed. Melchiori, Giorgio. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1984.Google Scholar
Massinger, Philip. The Picture. London: 1630.Google Scholar
A Mirror for English Soldiers. London: 1596.Google Scholar
Munday, Anthony. Palmerin de Oliva. London: 1588.Google Scholar
Park, Katharine. “The Life of the Corpse.” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 50 (1995): 111–32Google Scholar
Raleigh, Walter. The Discovery of ... Guiana. London: 1596.Google Scholar
Saltonstall, Wye. Picturae Loquentes. 1631.Google Scholar
Sprint, John. Anatomy of the Controverted Ceremonies of the Church of England. Oxford: 1618.Google Scholar
Stubbes, Philip. Anatomy of Abuses. London: 1583.Google Scholar
Valverde, Juan. Historia de la Composición del Cuerpo Humano. Rome: 1556.Google Scholar
Webster, John. The Duchess of Malfi. The Complete Works of John Webster. Vol. 2. Ed. Lucas, F. L.. London: Chatto and Windus, 1927.Google Scholar

Further reading

Grabes, Herbert. The Mutable Glass: Mirror-Imagery in Titles and Texts of the Middle Ages and the English Renaissance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Hillman, David. Shakespeare’s Entrails: Belief, Scepticism and the Interior of the Body. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2007.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Payne, Lydia. With Words and Knives: Learning Medical Dispassion in Early Modern England. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007.Google Scholar
Sawday, Jonathan. The Body Emblazoned: Dissection and the Human Body in Renaissance Culture. London: Routledge, 1995.Google Scholar
Sugg, Richard. “The Anatomical Web: Literary Dissection from Castiglione to Cromwell.” Rhetoric and Medicine in Early Modern Europe. Ed. Struever, Nancy and Pender, Stephen. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2012. 83–109.Google Scholar
Sugg, Richard. Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires: The History of Corpse Medicine from the Renaissance to the Victorians. Oxford: Routledge, 2011.Google Scholar
Sugg, Richard. Murder after Death: Literature and Anatomy in Early Modern England. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2007.Google Scholar
Sugg, Richard. The Smoke of the Soul: Medicine, Physiology and Religion in Early Modern England. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2013.Google Scholar

Sources cited

Boorde, Andrew. The Breviarie of Health. London: 1598.Google Scholar
Bullein, William. The Government of Health. London: 1595.Google Scholar
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. Ed. Benson, Larry D.. 3rd ed. The Riverside Chaucer. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987.Google Scholar
Cotta, John. A Short Discovery of the Unobserved Dangers of Several Sorts of Ignorant and Unconsiderate Practisers of Physic in England. London: 1612.Google Scholar
Fitzpatrick, Joan. Food in Shakespeare: Early Modern Dietaries and the Plays. Hants: Ashgate, 2007.Google Scholar
Hoeniger, F. David. Medicine and Shakespeare in the English Renaissance. Newark: U of Delaware P, 1992.Google Scholar
MacDonald, Michael. Mystical Bedlam: Madness, Anxiety and Healing in Seventeenth Century England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.Google Scholar
Paré, Ambroise. The Works of that Famous Chirurgion Ambrose Parey. Trans. Johnson, Th.. London: 1634.Google Scholar
Pater, Erra. A Prognostication Forever. London: 1605.Google Scholar
Pettigrew, Todd H. J. Shakespeare and the Practice of Physic. Newark: U of Delaware P, 2004.Google Scholar
Roberts, Katherine. “The Wandering Womb: Classical Medical Theory and the Formation of Female Characters in Hamlet.” Classical and Modern Literature 15.3 (1995): 223–32.Google Scholar
Tiller, Kenneth J. “The Fool as Physician in Shakespeare’s Plays.” Shakespeare’s Theories of Blood, Character, and Class. Ed. Rollins, Peter C. and Smith, Alan. New York: Peter Lang, 2001. 43–60.Google Scholar

Further reading

Bentley, Greg. Shakespeare and the New Disease: The Dramatic Function of Syphilis in “Troilus and Cressida,” “Measure for Measure,” and “Timon of Athens.” New York: Peter Lang, 1989.Google Scholar
Furdell, Elizabeth Lane, ed. Textual Healing: Essays on Medieval and Early Modern Medicine. Leiden: Brill, 2005.Google Scholar
Paster, Gail Kern. The Body Embarrassed: Drama and the Disciplines of Shame in Early Modern England. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1993.Google Scholar
Paster, Gail Kern. Humouring the Body: Emotions and the Shakespearean Stage. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2004.Google Scholar
Pelling, Margaret. Medical Conflicts in Early Modern London: Patronage, Physicians, and Irregular Practitioners, 1550–1640. Oxford: Clarendon, 2003.Google Scholar
Peterson, Kaara L. “Historica Passio: Early Modern Medicine, King Lear, and Editorial Practice.” Shakespeare Quarterly 57.1 (spring 2006): 1–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pope, Maurice. “Shakespeare’s Medical Imagination.” Shakespeare Survey 38 (1986). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 175–86.Google Scholar

Sources cited

Bradley, A. C. Shakespearean Tragedy. 2nd ed. London: Macmillan, 1905.Google Scholar
Bright, Timothy. A treatise of melancholie Containing the causes thereof, & reasons of the strange effects it worketh in our minds and bodies: with the physicke cure, and spirituall consolation for such as haue thereto adioyned an afflicted conscience. London: Thomas Vautrollier, 1586.Google Scholar
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Lectures 1808–19 on Literature. Ed. Foakes, R. A.. 2 vols. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1987.Google Scholar
Du Laurens, André. Discours de la conservation de la veue, des maladies mélancholiques, des catarrhes et de la vieillesse. Tours: Mettayer, J., 1594. Translated as A discourse of the preseruation of the sight: of melancholike diseases; of rheumes, and of old age. London: Felix Kingston, 1599.Google Scholar
Gerard, John. The herball or Generall historie of plantes. London: John Norton, 1597.Google Scholar
Sir Gollancz, Israel. The Sources of Hamlet. London: Humphrey Milford, 1926.Google Scholar
Greenblatt, Stephen. Shakespearean Negotiations. Berkeley: U of California P, 1988.Google Scholar
Harsnett, Samuel. A declaration of egregious popish impostures: to with-draw the harts of her Maiesties subiects from their allegeance, and from the truth of Christian religion professed in England, vnder the pretence of casting out deuils. Practised by Edmunds, alias Weston a Iesuit, and diuers Romish priestes his wicked associates. Where-vnto are annexed the copies of the confessions, and examinations of the parties themselues, which were pretended to be possessed, and dispossessed, taken vpon oath before her Maiesties commissioners, for causes ecclesiasticall. London: Iames Roberts 1603.Google Scholar
Hoeniger, F. David. Medicine and Shakespeare in the English Renaissance. Newark: U of Delaware P, 1992.Google Scholar
Jorden, Edward. A briefe discourse of a disease called the suffocation of the mother Written vppon occasion which hath beene of late taken thereby, to suspect possesion of an euill spirit, or some such like supernaturall power. Wherin is declared that diuers strange actions and passions of the body of man, which in the common opinion, are imputed to the diuell, haue their true naturall causes, and do accompanie this disease. London: John Windet, 1603.Google Scholar
Knights, L. C. Drama and Society in the Age of Jonson. London: Chatto and Windus, 1937.Google Scholar
Muir, Kenneth. “Madness in King Lear.” Shakespeare Survey 13 (1966): 30–40.Google Scholar
Neely, Carol Thomas. Distracted Subjects: Madness and Gender in Shakespeare and Early Modern Culture. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2004.Google Scholar
Theobald, Lewis. The works of Shakespeare: in seven volumes. Collated with the oldest copies, and corrected; with notes, explanatory, and critical: by Mr. Theobald. 7 vols. London: A. Bettesworth and C. Hitch, J. Tonson, F. Clay, W. Feales, and R. Wellington, 1733.Google Scholar
Wilde, Oscar. “Epistola: In Carcere et Vinculus.” The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde. Ed. Small, Ian. 4 vols. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005. 2: 35–156.Google Scholar
Wright, Thomas. The Passions Of The Minde In General. London: Valentine Simms, 1604.Google Scholar

Further reading

Fisher, Sandra K. “Hearing Ophelia: Gender and Tragic Discourse in Hamlet.” Renaissance and Reformation/Renaissanceet Réforme 26.1 (1990): 1–10.Google Scholar
Hoeniger, F. David. Medicine and Shakespeare in the English Renaissance. Newark: U of Delaware P, 1992.Google Scholar
Jackson, Ken. Separate Theaters: Bethlem (“Bedlam”) Hospital and the Shakespearean Stage. Cranbury: Associated UP, 2005.Google Scholar
Salkeld, Duncan. Madness and Drama in the Age of Shakespeare. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1994.Google Scholar
Showalter, Elaine. “Representing Ophelia: Women, Madness, and the Responsibilities of Feminist Criticism.” Shakespeare and the Question of Theory. Ed. Parker, Patricia and Hartman, Geoffrey. New York: Methuen, 1985.Google Scholar
Simpson, R. R. Shakespeare and Medicine. Edinburgh: E. and S. Livingstone, 1959.Google Scholar
Wechsler, Judith. “Performing Ophelia: The Iconography of Madness.” Theatre Survey 43 (2002): 201–21.Google Scholar

Sources cited

Brownlow, F. W. Shakespeare, Harsnett, and the Devils of Denham. Newark: U of Delaware P, 1993.Google Scholar
Cox, John E. The Works of Thomas Cranmer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1846.Google Scholar
Darrell, John. A Briefe Apologie Proving the Dispossession of William Sommers. n.p.: 1599.Google Scholar
Harsnett, Samuel. A Discoverie of the Fraudulent Practices of John Darrel. London: 1603.Google Scholar
Jorden, Edward. A briefe discourse of a disease called the suffocation of the mother Written vppon occasion which hath beene of late taken thereby, to suspect possesion of an euill spirit, or some such like supernaturall power. Wherin is declared that diuers strange actions and passions of the body of man, which in the common opinion, are imputed to the diuell, haue their true naturall causes, and do accompanie this disease. London: John Windet, 1603.Google Scholar
Karlsen, Carol. The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England. New York: Vintage Books, 1989.Google Scholar
The Most Strange and Admirable Discoverie of the Three Witches of Warboys. London: 1593.Google Scholar
Muir, Kenneth. “Samuel Harsnett and King Lear.” Review of English Studies ns 2 (1951):11–21.Google Scholar
Swan, John. A true and Breife Report, of Mary Glovers Vexation. London: 1603.Google Scholar

Further reading

Almond, Philip C. Demonic Possession and Exorcism in Early Modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Almond, Philip C. The Witches of Warboys: An Extraordinary Story of Sorcery, Sadism and Satanic Possession. London: I. B. Tauris, 2008.Google Scholar
Ferber, Sarah. Demonic Possession and Exorcism in Early Modern France. London: Routledge, 2004.Google Scholar
Gibson, Marion. Possession, Puritanism and Print: Darrell, Harsnett, Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Exorcism Controversy. London: Pickering and Chatto, 2006.Google Scholar
Greenblatt, Stephen. Shakespearian Negotiations. Berkeley: U of California P, 1988.Google Scholar
Kallendorf, Hilaire. Exorcism and Its Texts: Subjectivity in Early Modern Literature of England and Spain. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2003.Google Scholar
Macdonald, Michael. Witchcraft and Hysteria in Elizabethan London: Edward Jorden and the Mary Glover Case. London: Tavistock Routledge, 1991.Google Scholar
Sharpe, James. The Bewitching of Anne Gunter: A Horrible and True Story of Football, Witchcraft, Murder, and the King of England. London: Profile Books, 1999.Google Scholar
Walker, D. P. Unclean Spirits: Possession and Exorcism in France and England in the Late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1981.Google Scholar

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Why this information is here

This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

Accessibility Information

Accessibility compliance for the HTML of this chapter is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×