Medical directions written for Governor Winthrop

Medical directions written for Governor Winthrop

Covers

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 1809-1894

Stafford, Edward, b. 1617 (author)

English physician Edward Stafford compiled a book of basic recipes for medical disorders such as madness, vertigo, and the king’s evil for John Winthrop (1588-1649), the governor of Massachusetts. At the request of Robert C. Winthrop, president of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Holmes annotated the text and presented a paper on it to the society in 1862; he also then incorporated the Stafford recipes into his introductory lecture at Harvard that November. Holmes said, “Whatever we may think of Dr. Stafford’s practice, it is not certain that his patients would all have done better under the treatment of the present day. Some differences there would certainly be in our favor…. But slight cases of disease would commonly get well under his treatment, and severe ones often die under ours…. Though some of his prescriptions may cause us to smile or shudder, it would be well if a physician of our time, whose prescriptions should be exhumed in the year 2080, were able to stand the examination of posterity as creditably as the very respectable Dr. Stafford.”

Cover of Medical directions written for Governor Winthrop by Edward Stafford, of London, in 1643, with notes by Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894)

Stafford, Edward, b. 1617

John Wilson and Son

1862

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 1809-1894

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Harvard Medical Library Rare Books Collection (RS125.S13)

text

1 cover

English

text

DigID0002189

Transferred from the Harvard College Library to the Library of Harvard Medical School, 1942