Health and Wellness in Colonial America

by Rebecca Tannenbaum Ph.D.

Overview

Health and Wellness in Colonial America covers all aspects of medicine from surgery to the role of religion in healing, giving readers a comprehensive overall picture of medical practices from 1600 to 1800—a topic that speaks volumes about the living conditions during that period. In this book, an introductory chapter describes the ways in which all three cultures in colonial America—European, African, and Native American—thought about medicine. The work covers academic and scientific medicine as well as folk practices, women's role in healing, and the traditions of Native Americans and African Americans.

Because of its broad scope, the book will be highly useful to advanced high school students; undergraduate students in various areas of studies, such as early American history, women's history, and history of medicine; and general readers interested in the history of medicine.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780313384912
Publisher:	ABC-CLIO, Incorporated
Publication date:	08/17/2012
Series:	Health and Wellness in Daily Life
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	249
File size:	963 KB

About the Author

Rebecca Tannenbaum, PhD, received her doctorate from Yale University, New Haven, CT, where she is now senior lecturer in history. Her published works include The Healer's Calling: Women and Medicine in Early New England.

Table of Contents

Series Foreword xi

1 Factors in Health and Wellness 1

The Disease Environment 2

Living Conditions and Life Expectancies 10

Health and Disease in a Transformed America 14

2 Education and Training: Learned and Nonlearned 17

The Training of Native American and African American Practitioners 17

Anglo-American Traditions 20

Changes in the Eighteenth Century 25

The First American Medical Schools 27

3 Faith, Religion, and Medicine 33

Christianity and Healing 33

Native American Practices 40

African American Religion and Healing 42

Witchcraft and Demonic Possession 45

4 Women's Health 53

Beliefs About Women's Bodies: Menstruation, Sexuality, and Conception 54

Pregnancy 56

Childbirth 58

Breastfeeding and Breast Health 62

Fertility and Infertility 65

5 Infants' and Children's Health 69

Infant and Child Care in Native American Cultures 69

Infant and Child Care in Anglo-American Cultures 71

Infant and Child Care in African American Cultures 74

Accidents and Injuries 76

Infectious Disease 77

6 Infectious Disease 85

First Contact Epidemics 86

Infectious Disease and Colonial Settlement 89

Fighting Epidemic Disease in the Colonial City 93

7 "Dangerous Trades" and Occupational Health 105

The Maritime Trades 105

Female Sex Workers 110

Enslaved Workers 112

8 Surgery, Dentistry, and Orthopedics 119

Science, Surgery, and Anatomy in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Europe 119

Who were the Surgeons in America? 122

Treating Trauma 124

Cutting for the Stone 127

Breast Cancer and Mastectomy 129

Dentists and Dental Care 130

9 The Brain and Mental Disorders 135

Understandings of the Brain in European American Culture 136

Neurological Disease 137

Intellectual Disability 141

Mental Illness 142

Eighteenth Century Changes 147

10 The Apothecary and his Pharmacopeia 153

Native American Traditions 153

Native American Medicines and Europeans 155

African American Traditions 157

African American Exchanges of Knowledge 158

Anglo-American Apothecaries and Medicines 159

11 War and Health 169

Colonial Era Warfare and Weapons 170

Treating Battlefield Injuries 172

Infectious Disease during Wartime 176

Germ Warfare? 183

Military Hygiene, Physicians, and Hospitals 184

12 Institutional Facilities 193

Almshouses 193

The First American Hospitals 199

13 Disease, Healing, and the Arts 211

Almanacs and Popular Print 211

Home Health Guides 214

Cotton Mather's Angel of Bethesda 215

The Poetry of Anne Bradstreet 216

Health and Medicine in Colonial Era Diaries 218

The Arts in Native American and African American Medicine 221

Glossary 227

Suggestions for Further Reading 229

Index 233

Editorial Reviews

These titles do a thorough job of covering broad and varied time periods, and students requiring reference material on the history of health and wellness for different eras will be well served by this set.” —Booklist

From the Publisher