Top Twelve

Due to lack of time related to my new job, plus beginning another independent study class at MTSO, I have reluctantly decided to end this blog.  There is more rich information to embroider John Wesley's world and the perspectives of early Methodist medicine, but we have covered the basics, you and I, in only 90 posts.

So I would like to leave you with the important things to remember from primitivephysick.blogspot.com.

Bronze fennel
for heartburn

The Top Twelve

 

1. John Wesley wrote Primitive Physick out of his passion for the poor and their health care.
2.  It was the #1 best selling health care book of 18th century Britain.  It had 23 printings during his life, and continued to be published until the 1880s.
3.  Wesley lived in a time when a fever in the morning could mean death by nightfall, aspirin had not yet been created, and people died of things easily cured today.  Causes of illness were unknown.

Celendine for
breast cancer, sty,
thrush and jaundice

4.  Everyone discussed their health, exchanged treatment recipes for illness, and anyone with a bent or gift for healing could treat.

5.  Although physicians were emerging as the dominant form of medical caregiver, any educated and well-read man of the time knew as much as the physicians.  Wesley mentions or refers to over 100 medical texts in his writings.

Lavender
for headache and
swollen tonsils

6.  Primitive Physick was organized in alphabetical order, using the common English names for items that could be easily grown or obtained by the poor.
7.  Wesley offered several options for each illness or condition, encouraging people to try one at a time rather than several at once (the common practice).

St. John's wort
for swelling

8.  He used the recipes on himself, and included feedback from others about what worked and what didn't.  This was at a time when physicians didn't prescribe based on data and outcomes but based on centuries old Greek theory.
9.  He was one of the primary practioners of electification (for free) to treat muscle and nerve problems.  This is a common treatment now for healing damaged muscles and treating pain.

Mallow
for sore breasts,
vertigo and
constipation

10.  He was not anti-physician, but wanted his readers to seek out Christian physicians who would understand the importance of the soul as well as the body.
11.  Wesley taught physical healing could occur through both medical and spiritual care, but that it rarely occurred without both.  (In other words, to expect faith alone to heal did not make sense to him.)

Horseradish
for headache and
consumptive
cough

12.  He made no money on Primitive Physick.  He sold it for 1/6th of the cost of the next most popular health care book, and its profits were channeled back into the Methodist movement.

Purple sage
for spitting or
vomiting blood

John Wesley's contributions as a theologian are well documented and well recognized.  These have overshadowed his contributions to medical care, especially electrical treatment, so that few people know about his passion for the whole person.  Learning more about John's integration of body and soul in the 18th century through both medical and spiritual care gives us a better understanding how we integrate the care of body and soul in the 21st century.

Thank you for sharing this journey with me.

All photos taken at the John Wesley Physic Garden at the Old Rectory in Epworth, UK on 9 October 2012.  Thanks to the volunteers who planted and maintain this garden.

John's failure

Now granted, John was not a perfect person.  He was brash, pushy, obsessed with the Methodist movement to the detriment of his family, a lousy husband, socially awkward with anyone rich, and as he grew older he was insistent that his leadership of Methodism was the only way.  However, this is the thing that disappoints me most about John.
He records on three occasions interactions with a madwoman named Louisa, and he does not pray for her.  He appears to feel she is beyond prayer and beyond God's comfort.

"Such a sight ... I never saw before!  Pale and wan, worn with sorrow, beaten with wind and rain, having been so long exposed to all weathers, with her hair rough and frizzled, and only a blanket wrapped round her, native beauty gleamed through all.  Her features were small and finely turned; her eyes had a peculiar sweetness; her arms and fingers were delicately shaped, and her voice soft and agreeable.  But her understanding was in ruins.  She appeared partly insane, partly silly and childish.  She would answer no question concerning herself, only that her name was Louisa.  She seemed to take no notice of any person or thing, and seldom spoke above a word or two at any time.  Mr. Henderson ["the best physician for lunatics in England" and previously a Methodist preacher] has restored her health, and she loves him much.  She is in a small room by herself, and wants nothing that is proper for her."

"Sorrowing Old Man" or
"At Eternity's Gate"
Vincent van Gogh, 1890

Two years later, he visited her again while he was in town.  "I spent a few melancholy minutes ... with the lost Louisa.  She is now in a far more deplorable state than ever.  She used to be mild, though silly; but now she is quite furious.  I doubt the poor machine cannot [sic] be repaired in this life."  A year later on his last visit, "I ... saw poor disconsolate Louisa, still wrapping herself up in her blanket, and not caring to speak to anyone." (Laffey, 476.)

Perhaps it is because John believed "religion ... stands in direct opposition to madness of every kind" that he abandoned Louisa, not even praying for her.  She had become a "poor machine."  Is that what we do as Christians -- abandon the mentally ill because our religion cannot easily rationalize their situations or cure them?

Soul and body in madness

John attributed madness as being due to a disordered body (Laffey, 473).  Then the madness affects the soul, he says in a sermon.  "Suppose a soul, however holy, [is] to dwell in a distempered body; suppose the brain be so thoroughly disordered as that raging madness follows; will not all the thoughts be wild and disconnected, as long as that disorder continues?" (Wesley, Sermons, vol. 2, semon 41, 129.) 

 John always looked for a spiritual cause for distraught behavior before conceding madness.  He felt that often these manifestions of "mere" madness were spiritual issues, rather than just a physical ones (Laffey, 470).  Remember, this is before Sigmund Freud and the idea of the unconcious affecting behavior.  But when John could find no spiritual cause, he then conceded physical mental illness.  For spiritual issues, he prescribed prayer and faith.  For madness, he prescribed physic directed at the body (Laffey, 474).

Yet using the "treatment" of faith was not infallible: "... faith does not overturn the course of nature: natural causes still produce natural effects. Faith no more hinders the 'sinking of the spirits' [biological depression] ... than the rising of the pulse in a fever." (Wesley, Sermons, vol. 2, semon 47, 227.)

For modern riffs on the subject of spirituality affecting mental illness, I recommend two easy resources.  (Until recently, I was a psych nurse for seven years.)  For help for yourself and others with mental illness, I would highly recommend the book Why Do Christians Shoot Their Wounded?: Helping (Not Hurting) Those with Emotional Difficulties, as the way to view emotional illness with spiritual eyes.  For a Christian comedian's perspective on her own depression and antidepressants, especially the belief if that if one has enough faith one can beat depression, see (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pn5NZY_fQk), or any of Chonda Pierce's clips about depression.

Wesley's views on madness

The Puritans of in the 17th century attributed mental and emotional illnesses to spiritual causes.  Their solutions were spiritual, prescribing prayers, repentance and faith.  In the 18th century some of the medical community began to consider these illnesses as having natural causes with medical treatments (Maddox, "Health," 12).   Using the rational approach of the Enlightenment, many diagnosticians thought all emotional illnesses were due to natural causes (Laffey, 470).

Although John began by considering madness as exclusively caused by demons, he read George Cheyne's The Natural Method of Curing the Disease of the Body and Disorders of the Mind Depending on the Body in 1742, and began to examine the causes more closely (Maddox, "Health," 13).  Randy Maddox explains, "Soon thereafter he assessed a case of raving madness to be attributable simply to a fever.  He also began to record instances [in his journal] where prayer for deliverance was not sufficient for curing lunacy/madness.  Conversely, while he was initially sarcastic about the value of confining anyone in 'Bedlam' (i.e., Bethlehem [sic] Hospital), the first public asylum in London, he came to believe that institutional care of lunatics could be beneficial[.] ... While Wesley continued to remind readers in his later years that some physicians considered many cases of lunacy to be diabolical in origin, he came to consider most clear cases of insanity to be natural in origin, and assumed that -- in addition to prayer -- they should be treated by either professional or traditional medical means." (Maddox, "Health," 12.)

John made a clear distinction between madness caused by biology and madness caused by spiritual distress.  He felt clergy ought to be consulted in cases of emotional illness:

"Reflecting to-day on the case of a poor woman who had continual pain in her stomach, I could not but remark the inexcusable negligence of most physicians in cases of this nature.  They prescribe drug upon drug, without knowing a jot of the matter concerning the root of the disorder.  And without knowing this they cannot cure, though they can murder, the patient.  Whence came this woman's pain (which she would never have told had she never been questioned about it)?  From fretting for the death of her son.  And what availed medicines while that fretting continued?  Why, then, do not all physicians consider how far bodily diseases are caused or influenced by the mind, and in those cases which are utterly out of their sphere call in the assistance of a minister; as ministers, when they find the mind disordered by the body, call in the assistance of a physician?  But why are these cases out of their sphere?  Because they know not God.  It follows, no man can be a thorough physician without being an experienced Christian." (Wesley, Journal, v. 4, 313.)

Methodist enthusiasm = madness

1758
(Wellcome Library)

The "enthusiasm" of early Methodists included passion about piety, a personal relationship with God, and that faith affected the rest of one's life totally.  Their perceived excesses were often defined by the Church of England followers as madness.  Not just the joking, "oh, you're crazy!" kind of perception, but truly being insane (Laffey, 468).  John records in his journal several situations where families sought medical treatment for newly converted Methodists in an attempt to cure them (Maddox, "Health," 12).  The word "enthusiasm" roughly meant "insanity" by the mid 18th century, as demonstrated by Samuel Johnson in his 1755 Dictionary as he quoted John Locke: "Enthusiasm is founded neither on reason nor divine revelation but ruises from the conceits of a warmed or overweening brain." (Laffey, 478.)  By 1792 Johnson defined enthusiasm as "1. A vain belief of private revelation; a vain confidence of divine favour.  2. Heat of imagination; violence of passion.  3. Elevation of fancy; exaltation of ideas." (Johnson.)  Not the labels we give Methodists today!

 



"Enthusiam Displayed at the Moor-Fields Congregation"
(not very flatteringly)
(Wellcome Library)

John responded in a 1750 sermon, pointing out that of course the world thought enthusiasm to be madness!  Worldly persons did not understand faith as "... that utter contempt of all temporal things, and steady pursuit of things eternal; that divine conviction of things not seen; that rejoicing in the favour of God; that happy, holy love of God; and that testimony of his Spirit with our spirit that we are the children of God."  (Wesley, John. The Works of John Wesley -- Sermons, edited by Albert Outler (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1987), vol. 2, sermon 37, 46.)  He continued, "Every enthusiast then is properly a madman.  Yet his is not an ordinary, but a religious madness.  By religious I do not mean that it is any part of religion.  Quite the reverse: religion is the spirit of a sound mind, and consequently stands in direct opposition to madness of every kind." (Wesley, Works, vol. 2, sermon 37, 50.)

 

Paul Laffey states that John wrote more about interactions with mad persons than any other religious leader of the time.  In fact, he says, "Wesley's writings provide the richest stock of source material detailing eighteenth-century religious understandings of insanity."  (Laffey, 468.)

Apologies

Dear Readers,
I have briefly mentioned starting a new job after a 2.5 month period of unemployment.  The major downside of my wonderful new job is that it takes time.  Overtime, travel time, getting ready to go time ...
Thus, I am not able to post daily as I did previously.



17th century
(Wellcome Library)

Please remember that this blog is not rantings, ramblings, or ruminations, but research.  Each post takes me 3-4 hours to investigate and to write.

I hope you will return and check here weekly to see what is new.

Now back to John and mental health.

Madness in "Primitive Physic"

"Portrait of Mad Margery, a young
woman driven mad and living in the
fields."  In 1790-1800, there was
a popular song called
"Poor Mad Margery."
(Wellcome Library)

Madness is the one area of health care in which John disappoints me.  We'll talk about it more later, but let's begin with what he prescribes in Primitive Physic.

"Lunacy.
468.  Give decotion* of agrimony four times a day.
469.  Or, rub the head several times a day with vinegar, in which ground-ivy leaves have been infused:
470.  Or, take daily an ounce of distilled vinegar:
471.  Or, boil juice of ground-ivy with sweet oil and white wine into an ointment.  Shave the head, anoint it therewith, and chafe it in warm every other day for three weeks.  Bruise also the leaves and bind them on the head, and give three spoonfuls of the juice warm every morning.  This generally cures melancholy.
The juice alone, taken twice a day, will cure
472.  Or, electrify: -- tried.

Ground ivy
Old Operating Theatre
and Herb Garret
15 October 2012

"Raging Madness.
473.  Apply to the head, cloths dipt in cold water:
474.  Or, set the patient with his head under a great water-fall, as long as his strength will bear: or, pour water on his head out of a tea-kettle:
475.  Or, let him eat nothing but apples for a month:
476.  Or, nothing but bread and milk: tried."

"It is a sure rule that all madmen are cowards, and may be conquered by binding only, without beating.  (Dr. MEAD. [who John is quoting])  He also observes, that blistering the head does more harm than good.  Keep the head close shaved, and frequently wash it with vinegar." (Wesley, Physic, 79.)

*decoct = "1. To prepare by boiling for any use.  2. Digest by the heat of the stomach.  3. To boil in water.  4. To boil up to a consistence." (Johnson.)