Old Wives' Tales: The History of Remedies, Charms and Spells

by Mary Chamberlain

Overview

We may all know that dandelions make us wet the bed, and that stewed prunes are a cure for constipation, but how many of us were aware that a poultice of chicken manure is a remedy for baldness? Or that eel liver will aid a difficult labour?

The woman healer is as old as history. For millennia she has been doctor, nurse and midwife, and even in the age of modern medicine her wisdom is handed down in the form of old wives’ tales.

Using extensive research into archives and original texts, and numerous conversations with women in city and countryside, Mary Chamberlain presents a stimulating challenge to the history of orthodox medicine and an illuminating survey of female wisdom which goes back to the earliest times. What are old wives’ tales? Where do they come from? Do they really work? These questions, and many more, are answered in this fascinating compendium of remedies and cures handed down from mother to daughter from the beginning of time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780752458090
Publisher:	The History Press
Publication date:	09/01/2010
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	4.90(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Mary Chamberlain is a history professor at Oxford Brookes University. She has held visiting professorships at the University of the West Indies and at New York University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements     7
Old Wives
Introduction     11
From Goddess to Sorceress: Women healers in Assyria, Egypt, Greece and Rome     17
From Sorceress to Witch: The old wife in medieval Europe and seventeenth-century England     35
From Expert to Charlatan: The old wife and the medical profession in eighteenth-century England     65
Alternatives for the Sick: The old wife and the sick poor in nineteenth- and twentieth-century England     87
Conclusions: Perspectives on the medical profession and the old wife     125
Tales
Introduction to Remedies     141
Remedies     171
Notes     217
Bibliography     227
Index     335