Drawing upon a myriad of primary and secondary historical sources, The Royal Doctors: Medical Personnel at the Tudor and Stuart Courts investigates the influential individuals who attended England's most important patients during a pivotal epoch in the evolution of the state and the medical profession. Over three hundred men (and a handful of women), heretofore unexamined as a group, made up the medical staff of the Tudor and Stuart kings and queens of England (as well as the Lord Protectorships of Oliver and Richard Cromwell). The royal doctors faced enormous challenges in the sixteenth and...

This book examines the effects of medical publishing on the momentous theoretical and jurisdictional controversies in health care in early modern England. The simultaneous collapse of medical orthodoxy and the control of medicine in London by the Royal College of Physicians occurred when reform-minded doctors who were trained on the continent, in tandem with surgeons and apothecaries, successfully challenged the professional monopoly held by Oxbridge-educated elites. This work investigates the book trade, the role it played in medicine, and the impact of the debate itself on the public...

This anthology explores often overlooked periods in medicine from medieval to early modern times, taking as a principal theme the need to return to familiar texts and sources for new interpretations. In twelve essays written by a diverse group of scholars, the collection covers topics such as medical politics, herbal remedies and nationalism, the role of experience in casebook writing, the use of medical allusions in literature and popular culture, and the changing impact of various book editions on surgery, embryology, and lay medical knowledge.