Melancholy and Madness

Posted on June 5, 2019 by

Engraving by Hogarth

In the eighteenth century, melancholia was thought of not as a curable mental affliction, but as one of the primary forms of madness.

Melancholia means ‘black bile’, one of the four bodily humours recognised by the Hippocratic and Galenic systems of medicine that prevailed in Britain and elsewhere well into the 18th century. It was an excess of this ‘black bile’ which was thought to cause the malady. Aristotle thought black bile might ‘ferment’ to produce the anger and depression seen as characteristic of the malady.

Whatever the differences between writers on their views of how the disease was caused, all agreed that it led to symptoms of intense mental pain, depression and a general sense of failure and gloom, which could cause people to become insane and kill themselves.

The magisterial book on all forms and concepts of the disease was written in England:

“The Anatomy of Melancholy, What it is: With all the Kinds, Causes, Symptomes, Prognostickes, and Several Cures of it. In Three Maine Partitions with their several Sections, Members, and Subsections. Philosophically, Medicinally, Historically, Opened and Cut Up” Robert Burton, first published in 1621.

Treating Melancholy

There were probably as many treatments offered as there were physicians interested in the disorder, from locking people up to enemas and special dietary regimes. Burton’s own suggestions for treatment have a distinctly modern ring to them. He believed that melancholy could be dealt with by following a healthy diet, getting sufficient sleep, listening to music, and engaging in “meaningful” types of work. He also promoted talking about the problem with a friend.

Other approaches were more brutal. Amongst these, sea bathing (‘thalassotherapy’) became quite prevalent. Not our pleasant kind of splashing about in the sea, but a strict and violent form of immersion designed to induce first shock (from being plunged into cold water) then fear (by being held under until almost drowning). The purpose was, apparently, to cause the brain to ‘re-arrange’ itself into a better and more harmonious state. Others made the patient sit on a stool which whirled them around until they became dizzy and disoriented.

Benjamin Franklin even devised a primitive form of electro-convulsive therapy, using an electrostatic generator (a machine which produces electricity by rubbing material against a glass ball or cylinder turned by a crank) with a Leyden jar to stored the energy produced. On the whole, he considered his results disappointing, though he did note the propensity for electric shocks to the brain to destroy memory—something later proponents of electro-convulsive therapy seem to have missed for many decades.

Here’s an even more violent ‘cure’ for “hypochondria” (an alternative term for melancholy at the time) from Dr Benjamin Rush, an American doctor and signer of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. His answer was mercury, taken orally!

“Mercury acts in this disease, 1, by abstracting morbid excitement from the brain to the mouth. 2, by removing visceral obstructions. And, 3, by changing the cause of our patient’s complaints and fixing them wholly upon his sore mouth. The salivation will do still more service if it excite some degree of resentment against the patient’s physician or friends.”

The idea that giving you violent diarrhoea, a sore mouth and inciting your resentment against others could help lift your depression is little short of idiocy! Cure by heavy metal poisoning!

The plain fact was that medical knowledge of the time was more or less helpless in the face of most mental illnesses, so we should not be too critical. Even today, clinical depression is not treatable easily.

Non-medical Melancholy

While it’s clear that melancholy (in its artistic sense) is not the same as depression, it could be hard to avoid moving from the one into the other. Depression generally destroys motivation and induces lethargy and a pervasive sense of the hopelessness of any endeavour. Melancholy’s intensity of introspection and reflection produced in some a powerful driving force towards artistic achievement. In others, it slipped into an aesthetic flaccidness and self-indulgence.

Too often, melancholy became mostly an affectation, since its milder characteristics made the condition seem desirable, especially to the emerging Romantic Movement. There was a distinct appeal in maintaining the posture of a dignified, wistful and gloomy aloofness. It also became associated with the idea of possessing both a full amount — even an excess — of sensitivity to sentiment (itself highly regarded as an attribute of a cultured mind) and a creative mind. We will explore more of both of these aspects in a following posting.

Posted in Georgian Society, Medicine & Science | 1 Comment

Competing Pleasure Gardens

Posted on May 22, 2019 by

The most famous pleasure gardens of the eighteenth century were undoubtedly those in London. However, other towns and cities established similar gardens, amongst which Norwich had, perhaps, the most and some of the longest-lasting. At one time, five main gardens were competing for business in a city whose population at the time was perhaps little more than 30,000 people.

It isn’t surprising, therefore, that the rivalry between them could be fierce, especially on days when a large turn-out of people might be expected, such as on the king’s birthday.

All of them provided walks and areas for seeing and being seen. Most provided places to eat and drink, often with accompanying music. However, what drew the crowds was the prospect of some definite spectacle, such as the ascent of a balloon or a major firework display. Newspaper advertisements would then be used to announce the event and the presence of especially noted performers stressed

In 1781, two of the Norwich gardens, Bunn’s and Quantrell’s could be found listing competing attractions in the Norfolk Chronicle for the evening of of June 4th.

At BUNN’s Pantheon, On Monday, June 4, 1781, (being his Majesty’s Birth-day) will be performed a Concert of Vocal and Instrumental Music. First violin Mr REEVE. The Vocal Parts by Mr KEYMER (for the Night only) and Mr BUNN.

Act.1. By Desire, “An Invitation to Comus’s Court, “ Mr KEYMER.—A Song, Mr KEYMER.

Act 2. “The Wandering Sailor, “Mr BUNN.— A Song called “The Camp,” Mr KEYMER.

After the Concert will be exhibited in the Temple of Curiosity, Several Miscellaneous Miniature Paintings, designed and painted by Mr BUNN; in which will be introduced some well-known Prospects, and a curious Representation of the Neptune Society returning from their Annual Water-Frolic.

To conclude with an elegant Display of Fire-works, by Sig. Baptista PEDRALIO, in a Variety of Designs, in Brilliant, Chinese, Rayonant, Gold, Blue, Red, and Yellow Fires, particularly a curious Sun-Piece, forming a brilliant Glory to the Letters G.R.

Note: Admittance One Shilling.

Not a bad evening for one shilling (about £10 in today’s terms). A concert, an art exhibition and a firework display. Quantrells’, however, promised more.

On Monday, June the 4th (being his Majesty’s Birth-day), QUANTRELL’s Gardens will be most elegantly illuminated in the Evening, and a Concert of Instrumental Music, and a grand Collection of Fireworks will be exhibited by Sig. Antonio BATALUS. The evening to conclude with a capital Firework, called Harlequin from the Globe, With a Dance of Furies; And Sig. Antonio BATALUS will fly across the Garden with Fire from different Parts of his Body.

To finish with a great Eruption of Mount Aetna, etc.

Note: Admittance One Shilling. — Sixpence to be returned in Liquor, etc etc.

No art exhibition and instrumental rather than vocal music; perhaps no singers of the same ability of Messers Keymer and Bunn were available. However, this seems more than made up for by the prospect of seeing Signor Batalus flying across the garden with different parts of his body on fire and — no less — the eruption of Mount Aetna.

Best of all, after paying your shilling, you got half of it back in liquor!

Note that both of the displays of fireworkswere to be presented by Italians. They and the French dominated the early use of fireworks throughout Europe, sometimes producing spectacles of truly vast size. The technique was not so much to have actual fireworks much larger than usual, but to erect wooden frameworks decorated with statues and pictures, then set off a large number of relatively small actual fireworks all over them to produce the necessary effect of size and splendour.

By this time in the eighteenth century, such showmen were skilled at constructing elaborate, richly decorated ‘scenery’ representing temples or palaces, with translucent areas illuminated from the inside. The exterior would be decorated with plaster statuary, gilding, floral and other decorations. The fireworks proper were displayed on these erections and the effects accomplished by the repetition of many small fireworks set off all over this façade, while skyrockets were sent up above. Where possible, the grand set piece would be situated by a body of water to reflect and enhance the whole display.

Posted in C18th Norfolk, Georgian Society, Leisure | 2 Comments

Was Melancholy THE English Malady of the 18th Century?

Posted on May 8, 2019 by

Photo: Immanuel Giel

“Mine, you are to know, is a white Melancholy, or rather Leucocholy… which though it seldom laughs or dances, nor ever amounts to what one calls Joy or Pleasure, yet is a good easy sort of a state … But there is another sort, black indeed, which I have now and then felt, that has something in it like Tertullian’s rule of faith, ‘Credo quia impossible est’ [I believe it because it is impossible]; for it believes, nay, is sure of everything that is unlikely, so it be but frightful; and on the other hand excludes and shuts its eyes to the most possible hopes, and everything that is pleasurable; from this the Lord deliver us!”

Thomas Gray the Poet, writing to his friend Richard West in 1742.

“I begin to Emerge from a deep pit of Melancholy, Melancholy without any real reason for it, a Disease which God keep you from & all good men.”

William Blake, Letters to Cumberland: 2nd July, 1800.

“These are the dark November days, when the English hang themselves!”

Voltaire (1694 – 1778).

The title of this post was suggested by a famous 18th century treatise, “The English Malady”, published by George Cheyne in 1733. In the preface, Cheyne wrote:

“The Title I have chosen for this Treatise, is a Reproach universally thrown on this Island by Foreigners, and all our Neighbours on the Continent, by whom Nervous Distempers, Spleen, Vapours, and Lowness of Spirits, are, in Derision, call’d the ENGLISH MALADY. And I wish there were not so good grounds for this Reflection. The Moisture of our Air, the Variableness of our Weather, (from our Situation amidst the Ocean) the Rankness and Fertility of our Soil, the Richness and Heaviness of our Food, the Wealth and Abundance of the Inhabitants (from their universal Trade), the Inactivity and sedentary Occupations of the better Sort (among whom this Evil mostly rages) and the Humour of living in great, populous, and consequently unhealthy Towns, have brought forth a Class and Set of Distempers, with atrocious and frightful Symptoms, scarce known to our Ancestors, and never rising to such fatal Heights, nor afflicting such Numbers in any other known Nation. These nervous Disorders being computed to make almost one third of the Complaints of the People of Condition in England.”

In Georgian times, violent clashes of ideology were everywhere. The inherent scepticism of melancholia—its sense of understanding the limits imposed by human fallibility; its awareness of death and impermanence—offered a gentler response to the problems of the time than bloody revolution. Perhaps that’s why there was never an English Revolution to follow the one in France: the English were insufficiently idealistic in temperament, preferring to rely on tradition and custom rather than philosophical theorising. Even today, we English are deeply sceptical of abstractions. Our nostalgia for times past is rarely compatible with what David Hume saw as the “corrupt philosophical speculation about liberty” which led to revolution.

Nevertheless, there does seem to be a quintessentially English attraction to a certain kind of wistful nostalgia that easily slips into melancholy. As far back as John Dowland, English musicians tended to write music that looks back to paradise lost, not forward to some new Jerusalem. The ‘dying fall’ in melody is extremely common in English music of all kinds.

As we shall see in a later posting, melancholy was especially prevalent amongst the educated upper class of the time, as well as those most noted for their artistic skills.

Posted in Georgian Society, Medicine & Science, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Electioneering and Corruption in Georgian England

Posted on April 24, 2019 by

Voting in parliamentary elections in Georgian England was neither democratic nor free from undue influence. By modern standards, the whole system could be labelled as corrupt and biased. The presence of so-called ‘Rotten Boroughs’ — elections decided by a handful of voters, often instructed which way to vote by some local bigwig — prevented almost any election from being truly representative of the views of the people as a whole.

The number of those who were entitled to cast a vote was tiny by modern standards. Inclusion in the franchise varied according to local custom and history, but it was always restricted to adult men, and generally those who were far wealthier than the vast majority at the time. Norwich was known to have a particularly wide franchise, consisting of some 3000 voters. However, since the population of the city was around 40,000, even this group was hardly very representative, amounting to only 7.5% of the population.

Even so, politicians in the eighteenth century were more alert to public opinion than we might believe. At the most basic level, riots could break out whenever some cause stirred up the common people sufficiently. The “Wilkes and Liberty” riots of the 1760s and the “Gordon Riots” of the 1780s are examples. Those who held power were also expected to take a paternal interest in the welfare of the nation as a whole. It was no true substitute for democracy, but it was better than nothing.

Setting aside ‘structural’ sources of bias and corruption in elections of the time, what other factors might effect the result? I can think of three: bribery (in one form or another), electioneering and publicity, and patronage. ‘Managing’ elections, using combinations of these factors, is as common now as it was then — but usually less blatant.

Electioneering & Bribery

The first duty of those involved in managing the election hopes of any candidate is ‘getting the vote out’. It was especially important in a ‘freeman’ borough and county like Norwich. Around 3000 men might have been eligible to cast their votes, but what mattered was how many did so. Several factors complicated this. Counties returned two MPs, elected at the same time, so each voter had two votes ‘Straights’, ‘Splitters’ and ‘Plumpers’ | Pen and Pension, which could be shared between election interests or both given to one side. It was also possible to utilise one vote and discard the other. Although all voting had to be done in person and in Norwich itself, there was no requirement for voters to be resident in the city. Norwich had a significant number of ‘out-voters’ — enough to swing the election at times. In the 1796 election, the Quaker Bartlett Gurney won a clear majority of votes from local residents and William Windham only managed to win by ensuring a large number of out-voters arrived to support his cause.

The popular myth is that elections at this time were heavily influenced by bribery. This does not seem to be true, especially in Norwich. Windham refused to countenance the practice and there is no evidence anyone else offered cash inducements either. Indeed, in the few reported cases of potential bribery, the voters themselves indignantly refused what was offered.

On the other hand, non-monetary inducements were fairly commonplace. Out-voters expected to have their expenses paid for travelling to Norwich and often their subsistence costs as well. A good deal of wining-and-dining took place to win over undecided voters. Even the awarding of orders for printing election pamphlets, buying ribbons for supporters to wear, and the provision of the many other services deemed necessary to support a campaign could be viewed as an indirect form of influence in a city where the ‘masters’ in the various trades were also the voters.

Finances

Contested elections at the time were extremely expensive affairs. In quiet times, it was not unusual for pro-and anti-government interests to agree to put up only a single candidate each for of the seats. In that way, the balance of power in parliament was maintained, since each interest gained a single seat and no voting was required.

When an election was contested, the amount required to run a campaign could be considerable. In Norwich, the 1786 election cost around £8000 (a modern equivalent would be some £1.5 to £1.8 million). In 1802, the pro-government ‘slate’ of Windham and Frere spent that much on their own. Much of this expenditure was born by the supporters of each side. Candidates were also expected to spend heavily from their own resources. Windham’s diaries show he spent between £1,500 and £2,500 (£250,000 to £400,000) each time he faced a contested election, much of it on paying for out-voters to attend, since his local popularity with voters slumped towards the end of the century, due to his strident support of war with France.

In times of instability, or when by-elections became more frequent, the trouble and expense of fighting frequent elections could drive people out of politics altogether. Windham finally lost his Norwich seat in 1802 and had to accept a seat from a ‘Rotten Borough’ to stay in parliament and the government. When the so-called ‘Ministry of All the Talents’ fell in 1806, he had had enough and retired altogether.

Were eighteenth-century English elections fair? In modern terms, the answer has to be an emphatic “no”. The electorate was tiny and totally unrepresentative. Too many seats were in the gift of aristocratic landowners or municipal corporations. On the other hand, England was seen as a beacon of democracy in a Europe dominated by hereditary monarchies and dictators like Napoleon. It’s also true that party interests had far less influence on voting in the House of Commons than they do today. Georgian-period MPs could, and did, frequently act independently of any influences save their own views and consciences. No government of the time could rely on its supporters to vote consistently along party lines. It’s a shame today’s MPs don’t follow their example.

Posted in C18th Norfolk, Georgian Society, Politics

Some Georgian Medicine (from the archives)

Posted on April 17, 2019 by
Elizabeth PostlethwaiteElizabeth Postlethwaite in 1777
(© Copyright National Portrait Gallery, London)

A little while ago, rummaging in a secondhand bookshop as I often do, I found a small, locally-published book containing extracts from the correspondence of two Norfolk sisters, Elizabeth and Barbara, during the period 1733 to 1751.[1]

They were the daughters of Rev. Mathew Postlethwaite and Elizabeth Rogerson and had been born at the Rectory at Denton, south of Norwich in the direction of Bungay and the Suffolk border. When their mother died in 1730, their father married again, this time to Matilda Gooch[2]. At age 19, Barbara married a clergyman called Samuel Kerrich, vicar of Dersingham near the present Royal Family’s estate at Sandringham on the northwest of the county.

What to us would be a trivial, if probably slow journey of some 40 miles between the two locations proved an almost insuperable distance to these devoted sisters. Both, it seems, were rarely in a state of health good enough to face the rigours of country roads in the 1740s. Barbara was frequently pregnant and suffered several miscarriages; Elizabeth had some unspecified complaint that caused her to cough and experience feelings of great weakness and lassitude.

In these respects, it is probably fair to say that the two were not untypical of mid-eighteenth-century women of the middling sort. It’s easy to dismiss them as suffering mostly from hypochondria. Yet their letters show just how omnipresent death was amongst their families and friends, and how swiftly what began as a minor ailment developed into something far more life-threatening.

‘Official’ Remedies

We would expect them to share information on their states of health, especially during the long periods when they did not meet. They did this frequently and at length. However, what is of greater interest is the advice they exchanged on remedies; advice more likely to come from their friends and acquaintances than any qualified medical professional.

Medical professionals were not excluded entirely, though their advice may sometimes have done more harm than good. Writing to Barbara on 9th August, 1733, Elisabeth remarks that her father had chanced to meet the eminent Norwich physician Sir Benjamin Wrench at the dean’s house. Elisabeth’s constant problems were obviously part of the conversation, for she remarks that Sir Benjamin “… have [sic] thought of something that he is in hopes will be of great service to me.”

Exactly what that was is unclear, but Barbara writes on 29th October of the same year that she is glad Elizabeth has “done with the mercury”. Then she goes on:

… everybody that I have heard speak of it, say it is very lucky for them that take it if they find no hurt from it …”

She goes on to relate part of a humorous article on mercury as medicine for women she found “… in the magazine for August…”, to the effect that the only good it could do would be to “… turn ’em into barometers, that they may know whether it will be proper to go a visiting and when to be in bed …”
Elizabeth also writes from time to time of “being blooded” and “having a blister”, the result of cupping. Neither seem to do her any good, which is hardly surprising.

Home-made Remedies

In August, 1738, Elizabeth sends her sister a ‘Receipt’ for strengthening the blood, which she says she has got from Mrs Townshend:

Take three handfuls of red sage, stamp it in a stone mortar very small, put it into a quart of red port and let it stand 3 or 4 days close covered, then strain it out and bottle it. Take three spoonfuls of it and four spoonfuls of running water in a morning, fasting until the [port[3]]be done. This is good for scurvy and spleen.

In September, 1745, Elizabeth writes that their mother is unwell: “… her stomach [appetite?] is quite gone, that it was a punishment to her to get anything down.” As a result:

She is trying chocolate in a morning and take some mutton broth in an afternoon, for she thinks kitchen physic is best for her.

This didn’t seem to do much good, for Elizabeth returns to her mother’s illness in a letter dated 26th December, 1745:

… she tell me she have quite lost her stomach again, her constitution is quite broke. I doubt, I am afraid, she will never [sic] have her health again[4].

Barbara also took patent remedies for her health, for Elizabeth writes to her on 4th February, 1747:

I am glad you are got well and that you intend to try tar water,[5] I hope that it will keep you so.

Barbara did not reply on this point until March, 1748, when she wrote:

I drank tar water about a week, I like it mighty well, it was very agreeable to my stomach, but my bowels have never been right since that disorder in them. … I have been forced to take tincture of rhubarb twice or thrice o’week, but when my bowels are more settled I shall try it again.

Barbara’s husband was also sick in October, 1747, almost certainly with the malaria that spread easily near to the Fen Country of those parts. She writes:

The Dr[6] have had three fits of a tertian ague and expected another fit last Saturday evening … he have taken the bark[7] 3 or 4 times everyday since that he have had no more of it and he look very well …

“My Ailment is Breeding … ”

It is not be surprising to find that the married sister, Barbara, sometimes seems angry at the strain constant pregnancies places upon her. You need to read between the lines a little here, but it looks as if she may be hoping to rid herself of yet another child[8]. She writes in July, 1748:

Ever since I wrote to you last I have been very poorly, so faint o’mornings I am forced to rest 2 or 3 times before I can get my things on. I drink chocolate every morning and have been blooded, for I find my ailment is breeding. … I wonder I haven’t miscarried yet …

From the rest of the letter it is clear that she has been taking pennyroyal water. This was often used as a purgative and was said to be effective at expelling a dead child from the womb. Her sister Elizabeth was obviously worried, for she replied almost right away that, “… I beg you would be very careful of yourself and prevent if possible miscarrying, you know it is a very great injury, and weakening to your constitution.”[9]

By December, 1748, Barbara’s time is near and we find Elizabeth urging her to be sure to engage the services of a man-midwife. In January, Barbara took to her bed, still feeling ill, but believing the child “alive and well at present”. She was delivered of a boy in February, the only son who would survive the terrors of infancy.

In 1751, the sisters were reunited in Dersingham. Their father had died in 1745, but the household continued at Denton for a period, while their brother tried to persuade the owners of the advowson to allow him to succeed his father in the living. He was unsuccessful and eventually they all moved out. The brother received another living as a consolation prize, the sisters’ step-mother moved to Benacre, and Elizabeth moved to be with her sister again.

Despite her constant ill-health, Elizabeth proved to be much the stronger of the two, living until 1794 and surviving her sister by no less than 32 years.

Elizabeth Postlethwaite in 1777 (© Copyright National Portrait Gallery, London)

  1. Your affectionate and loving sister: the correspondence of Barbara Kerrich and Elizabeth Postlethwaite, 1733 to 1751, Nigel Surry (ed.), Larks Press, Dereham, 2000.`  ↩
  2. She is the ‘mother’ referred to in the correspondence. She was sister to the Bishop of Norwich of the period.  ↩
  3. The original says ‘claret’, but port must be meant.  ↩
  4. She lived until 1760.  ↩
  5. A foul-tasting remedy for colic made from pine tar and water, popularised by Bishop Berkeley at the start of the century.  ↩
  6. She always calls him thus. He was a Doctor of Divinity.  ↩
  7. The bark of the cinchona tree, the source of quinine.  ↩
  8. With all the problems she had and the many childhood illnesses, only two of her children survived infancy to grow up.  ↩
  9. Barbara did not miscarry, but her illness persisted throughout July, August and September. Elizabeth kept urging her to take “Mrs Townshend’s remedy” [mentioned above.  ↩
Posted in Medicine & Science, Uncategorized | 4 Comments

‘Party’ in 18th-century English politics

Posted on April 10, 2019 by

In our own times, most of us are familiar with partisan, party-based politics. That makes it all too easy for us to transfer our own experience with political parties into the political environment of the 18th-century. From all I have read, it’s clear that such ‘parties’ as existed at that time were very different from anything that we know today. Even the terms ‘Whig’ (liberal) and ‘Tory’ (conservative) used today hardly occurred at that time. When they did, they were not liked. Gibbon, in 1790, described such party labels as “foolish and obsolete odious words”. In many ways, national ideologically-based parties such as we have today had yet to evolve. They are more the product of the nineteenth than the eighteenth century.

There were partisan organisations and interests, of course, but these seem mostly to have been based around two approaches. Many consisted of those who supported or opposed powerful political figures. Others were based more on local interests than national ones. These latter groupings tended to support whoever they saw as most favourable to their interests, shifting allegiances radically if necessary. The nearest to national political viewpoints were derived from events in the 17th-century. The conservative Tories, with their emphasis on allegiance to the monarchy and the established church, were branded ‘Jacobites’ by their opponents, a name referring to those who had supported the ousted King James II and his ideas of absolute monarchy. The generally more liberal Whigs derived their heritage from people who had invited the Dutch William of Orange to invade and replace King James and tended to be seen as ‘republican’ in their ideas. This referred to the so-called ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688, by which Parliament came to be the supreme authority and the power of the monarch was sharply curtailed.

Norwich offers an excellent opportunity to observe 18th-century politics in action, since many of the records have been preserved. It also possessed an unusually large electorate for the time, as well as one that was both independent and volatile. It’s easiest to understand the pattern of allegiances if we label the parties as broadly either supporters or opponents of the government of the day. In the early part of the century, few elections produced much heat or excitement. By the 1760s and after, more of the Norwich elections were contested, some of them quite heatedly.

In the newspapers of the 1780s and after, the broad political groupings or ‘interests’ in Norwich were identified only by the colours of the ribbons worn by their supporters. The more conservative, generally pro-government interest — the supporters of the king, William Pitt the Younger and his administration — were known as the ‘Orange-and-Purples’. The anti-government party — sometimes, but not always, associated with Charles James Foxe and belief in the supremacy of parliament — were called the ‘Free Blues’ or ‘Blue-and-Whites’.

Another factor also complicated the Norwich political landscape. The city contained an unusually large number of Dissenters: people who rejected the teachings of the Established Church in favour of newer, more radical and evangelical alternatives, such as the Independents (Presbyterians and Unitarians), Baptists, Quakers and Methodists. Dissenters did not always vote in a bloc but were much more likely to be anti-establishment than in favour of the kind of ‘Church and King’ outlook of the Tories. Similarly, they often opposed the local municipal government, which tended to be dominated by rich merchants with a decidedly conservative outlook. In simple terms, the ‘Free Blues’ were attracted by reform and the ‘Orange-and-Purples’ by stability and adherence to the status quo.

Even amending our view of political parties in Georgian times to focus more on local, religious and class-based interests than national or ideological ones, is not quite sufficient. It omits the role of patronage in determining people’s political adherence. Those who worked on the great estates, or the merchants who depended on the local aristocracy and gentry, would be very unlikely to vote against their interests — particularly at a time when all votes had to be registered in person and orally. The election clerk asked each elector to name the candidates they wish to vote for. Anybody standing close by could therefore hear how the vote had been cast.

As a final comment, it’s important to note that many counties and boroughs fell well short of Norwich in terms of political independence and sophistication. In England before the Reform Act of 1832, many parliamentary contests were either decided by a handful of electors. Others were in the gift of some local aristocrat. Norwich had an unusually large and varied group of electors, in part because the franchise was based on two criteria, and in part because Norwich was both a city and county in its own right. The bulk of the franchise went to the freemen of the city: men with trades or professions organised somewhat along the lines of the old guilds. A vote could be earned either by becoming a master of your trade, and thus ‘free’ to operate on your own account within the bounds of the city, or by being the son of a freeman. The franchise was also extended to anyone who owned property in the city worth more than forty shillings annually. The ‘freeman vote’ especially was unusually democratic for the time. A freeman might be a grand merchant, but it might also be a relatively lowly cobbler or carpenter. Only the property-based franchise specifically favoured the wealthy.

Posted in Georgian Society, Politics, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

The 18th-century Apothecary

Posted on April 3, 2019 by
An 18th-century Apothecary’s Shop
(CC) Wellcome Images

Those of you who have read any of my Georgian murder-mystery books featuring Dr Adam Bascom will know that one of the important series characters is Peter Lassimer, an apothecary. I was therefore fascinated to find an article in a publication from the University of Melbourne, Australia, describing an 18th-century manuscript in their library [See reference at end of post].

The contents were written on the backs of many of the plates of an atlas of anatomy, and lie somewhere between a list of medicines and a set of recipes for prescriptions. While the name of the author is not known, the text was written sometime between about 1727 and 1740 by an apothecary in Hampshire, in the south of England, serving towns such as Portsmouth and Havant.

Apothecaries of the time delivered most of what we would now term primary health care. Physicians were too expensive for all but the wealthy and surgeons specialised in amputations and bone-setting, as well as often being barbers as well. Apothecaries were not allowed to charge a consultation fee, but made all their income from the sale of remedies — some they made up themselves and others they bought in ready made. They also dressed wounds, prescribed remedies and made up prescriptions for physicians and others. Many sold herbs and ‘exotic’ groceries, such as tea.

Printed Materials

There were many pharmacopoeias (lists of medical drugs) available at the time, but not all linked those drugs to specific medical conditions, or showed how to combine them into remedies. As an aid to future prescribing, and keep track of results, some apothecaries kept a prescription book . This might include a record of the medicines supplied to specific patients, the name of any physician involved, the costs, the dosage and the prescription itself.

The Manuscript

This particular manuscript combines elements of a pharmacopoeia and a prescription book by listing actual medical conditions with their associated remedies. Thirty-four specific diseases or groups of diseases are covered, often on the back of the plate from the original anatomical atlas linked to them. The information supplied also includes general comments about the drugs used, plus a list of detailed remedies, a few of which are linked to a named patient and contain the level of detail normally included in a prescription book.

Information such as this offers a fascinating list of remedies available at the time with evidence of their use, which had been found beneficial, and indications of extra information collected by the apothecary himself. Since other medical men are mentioned in conjunction with the prescriptions the apothecary made up for them, we can calculate that around two-thirds of the cases were the apothecary’s own patients and a third patients of various local physicians, surgeons and other apothecaries. There also seems to be a single prescription made up for a herbalist.

Most of the identifiable patients were adults who suffered from the typical ailments of both that time and this. There were women with gynaecological problems, elderly folk beset with respiratory and digestive problems, strokes, heart disease and ‘languor’ (depression). There were also periodic outbreaks of infections and fevers, especially in the winter. As might be expected, patients came primarily from amongst the ‘middling sort’, with a few gentry. Artisans and the poor were unlikely to be able to afford the cost of anything but home remedies or occasional visits to a Cunning Man or Woman.

Overall, the book contains around 1,000 ‘recipes’. Even so, it may be that the manuscript was never fully completed. For example, space was left for text never added and the content as it stands has no remedies for cuts and abrasions, associated infections, sprains, and several more serious injuries.

How typical was all this of actual medical practice of the time? That’s hard to say, given that so few similar items have survived. What is clear is that whoever compiled the book was devoted to his craft and assiduous in keeping and consulting his records. The ailments he was faced with were certainly common everywhere at the time. So were the bulk of the remedies, drugs and herbs he used. But if his practice was, as I suspect, typical of many at the time, his method of record-keeping might well have been almost entirely original.

[Reference] Dorothea Rowse , “The Hampshire apothecary’s book: An 18th century medical manuscript in the Baillieu Library”, University of Melbourne Collections , Issue 3, December 2008.

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