The Surgeon, the Midwife, the Quack: How to Stay Alive in Renaissance England - Hardcover

$28.95

The Surgeon, the Midwife, the Quack: How to Stay Alive in Renaissance England - Hardcover

Name: The Surgeon, the Midwife, the Quack: How to Stay Alive in Renaissance England - Hardcover
Brand: BooksCloud
SKU: 9781836430773
Price: 28.95 USD
Availability: InStock

by Alanna Skuse

$28.95

Book Overview

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

ISBN	9781836430773
Author	Alanna Skuse
Publisher	Oneworld Publications
Genre	History and Education
Format	Hardcover
Published	February 2026
Language	ENG- English
Pages	384
Weight	1.0 lb
Target Audience	Adults
Print Size	Standard Print

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