Excuses, excuses

London
Sorry I haven't posted!  (No, I'm not.)  But I have had a multitude of demands about why I have not continued with the thrrrriiiilllliing story of early Methodist medicine.  (No, I haven't.)  Let it  be known that I am doing research but have not been posting because I have also done other fun things, including going to theatre in the West End 4 nights this week.  (Yes, I have.)
In pursuit of the most exciting information, I have, on your behalf, been to the Wellcome Collection, the Royal College of Surgeons' Hunterian Museum, the British Museum, the Oxford Centre for Methodism, and the Old Operating Theatre and Herb Garret.  I have also bought more books than I can carry and will have to leave clothing behind to make room for books!  More to follow when I get home and have more time to devote to keeping you, my beloved readers, up to snuff about the 18th century.

Prayer and Health, part 2

London
"And above all, to add to the rest [of treatments for illness], (for it is not labour lost) that old unfashionable Medicine, Prayer. And have faith in God who 'killeth and maketh alive, who bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up,'" wrote Wesley in his introduction to Primitive Physick (xii). In "Advice with Respect to Health," he recommended, "[A]s God is the sovereign disposer of all things ... I earnestly advise every one, together with all other medicines, to use the medicine of medicines -- prayer." (quoted in Maddox, "Eccentric Parent," 20). In a letter, he directed, "Therefore expect from Him, not what you deserve, but what you want -- health of soul and health of body: ask, and you shall receive; seek, and you shall find; and not for your worthiness, but because 'worthy is the Lamb.'" (quoted in Webster, Robert. "'Health of Soul and Health of Body': The Supernatural Dimensions of Healing in John Wesley" in Madden, Deborah, ed. "Inward and Outward Health", 213.)
Wesley advised prayer, preventive health techniques, and medical care for the health of the early Methodists. Examples of this were prayers that led to cures, distribution of medications after meetings, and electrifying himself and others (Webster, 214).
"Even a brief perusal of his correspondence will show that he was always quick to encourage use of medical care," states Maddox ("Holistic Health," 11). Wesley believed God could work through both natural and supernatural healing, and that they complimented each other. Healing was an act of God's grace (Webster, 218).
Sometimes Wesley felt that prayer alone was sufficient. He wrote about two persons on separate occasions who prayed to be able to walk and were spontaneously able to do so (Webster, 213, 219-20).
The Methodists were being trained to be a disciplined people. Besides prayer, Wesley advocated the use of fasting and the receiving of Holy Communion. He felt God healed through these "means of grace", by helping Christians experience, per Webster, "a realm of existence that was intangible to the human senses" (220). Wesley records a time when his brother Charles was healed by taking the Sacrament (Webster, 223). Conversely, he prescribed the spittle remaining after fasting for relieving or curing various conditions from blindness to warts to rheumatism to a swelled liver! (Wesley, Primitive Physick, 125.)
Medical works were on Wesley's list of readings he assigned to his traveling lay assistants who provided pastoral care. Lay preachers were expected to offer medical as well as spiritual advice (Maddox, "Eccentric Parent," 18). Health and spiritual instruction were so intertwined for Wesley, he directed a sexually wayward preacher to both stop preaching and to stop teaching about physick! (Maddox, "Holistic Health," 9.)

Prayer and Health, part 1

Wesley did not promote health care as the only form of healing, nor prayer as the only form, but recommending using them together. He firmly believed God wants to heal and to restore fallen ones to wholeness. Randy Maddox states, "... [H]e's open to the notion of God working providentially, but his assumption is that in cases of physical ailment it is always God's deepest intent and desire to heal. The primary purpose [of God regarding sickness] is not to infect an illness in order to bring spiritual renewal, but that illness is part of the fallen-ness of the world. So the idea that physical wellness is always God's hope for us is very essential to John Wesley and very central to the work he did in collecting and giving medical advice." (Maddox, "Q&A," 2).
Depending totally on prayer for healing was rare for Christians at that time. Wesley, like the general populace, did not believe prayer and divine healing were spiritually better than going to medical professional (Maddox, "Holistic Health," 10).
Wesley was not opposed to physicians. In fact, his own physician was Dr. John Fothergill, described as "a leading and fashionable physician" (Madden, "Pastor and Physician," 102), and later in life he praised John Whitehead, who was at that time his physician (Maddox, "Holistic Health," 10). What he opposed was the inequality in health care between rich and poor. Since God's mercy is for all, Wesley believed that acts of mercy -- including health care -- ought to be for all (Maddox, "Holistic Health," 26). Logically, physicians who wanted to make money and garner prestige would gravitate to those who could pay them -- the rich (Picard, 171). In the various prefaces to Primitive Physic's 14th edition, Wesley recommends 3 times consulting a physician who believes in God. "In uncommon or complicated diseases, where life is more immediately in danger, I again advise every man without delay to apply to a Physician that fears God." (Wesley, Primitive Physic, xi, xvii, xix). By this he meant someone who was not out to prolong one's illness to make money, as many of them did (Picard, 171), and who was of the same mind spiritually as the patient.

Popular and Plain "Primitive Physick"

  Now that you are aware of the brouhaha, let's discuss the praiseworthy stuff.

  To clarify, those who taught physick did not give the actual treatments, but gave health and medical advice (Maddox, Randy. "John Wesley's The Primitive Physick: Q&A with Randy Maddox, Part II." interviewed by John Shorb, Church Health Reader. Published 10 February 2011, accessed 5 September 2012 at www.chreader.org/contentPage.aspx?resource_id=684). So Wesley was not giving treatments (except for electricity, which we'll talk about later); he is giving health recommendations.

Me with John discussing his  views on preventive health care. (Yes, he was only 5'3".)

  Primitive Physick is judged nowadays to be as good or better than other health care books published in the 18th century (Maddox, "Eccentric Parent," 34). It sold more copies than all of Wesley's other publications (back cover of New Room reprint of Primitive Physic, 2003). By the time Wesley died in 1791, 23 editions in London alone had been published, a "new edition" came out in 1828, and a "revised" one was published in 1840, making a total of 36 editions (Rogal, 82-83). It stayed in print consistently until the 1880s, which meant it was still being used then (Maddox, "Holistic Health", 4). It was immensely popular.

  It was written in English for a people who were increasingly literate. In contrast, faculty physicians, to promote their prestige, wrote in Latin with lots of medical jargon. (Madden, Deborah. "Pastor and Physician: John Wesley's Cures for Consumption" in Madden, 'Inward and Outward Health,' 115.) This is why Wesley, in his introduction to Primitive Physick, complained about physicians who "filled their writings with abundance of technical terms utterly unintelligible to plain men." (Wesley, Primitive Physic, vii.)

  His health recommendations were founded, not on old wives' tales or folklore or superstition, but were compilations of what Wesley felt was the best medical advice of the time (Maddox, "Holistic Health," 6). He left out a lot of treatments of the time that he felt were unreliable or dangerous. He was much more cautious than other writers of the time to recommend mercury, blood letting, or "cupping," (Maddox, "Q&A," 2) which was putting scalding plasters on the skin to cause blistering.

  The focus was on natural and simple remedies. Of the 225 treatments he lists, 17 are plant-based, 24 are minerals, and 184 are made from plants (Maddox, "Holistic Health", 23). He was not swept along with the evolving practices of physicians and apothecaries, who preferred chemicals, compound medicines with multiple ingredients, and exotic sources (Maddox, "Eccentric Parent," 20.)

  An herb garden in the back of his brother Charles' home in Bristol. Charles is famous for his hymns, most well-known being "Hark the Herald Angels Sing."

  Wesley instructed his lay assistants to leave a guide to spiritual health and a guide to physical health in every Methodist home. The spiritual guide was Wesley's excerpt of The Imitation of Christ, by Thomas a Kempis. The physical guide was, of course, Primitive Physick (Maddox, "Holistic Health," 8). So Primitive Physick was disseminated throughout England and on to America (Maddox, "QA", 1), where it was adapted to include remedies using North American ingredients.

Professionalism and the persecution of "Primitive Physick"

Salisbury

So we have seen how the physicians were jockeying for power to control the medical field of 18th century England, and were dismissive of the barber-surgeons, the apothecaries, the quacks, and the clergy as medical professionals. However, in 1773 the Quaker John Coakley Lettson, a physician-philanthropist, founded the The Medical Society of England, inviting surgeons and apothecaries as members. The earlier Royal College of Physicians obviously included only physicians. (Maddox, Randy. "Reclaiming the Eccentric Parent: Methodist Reception of John Wesley's Interest in Medicine," in Madden, Deborah, ed. in 'Inward and Outward Health:' John Wesley's Holistic Concept of Medical Science, the Environment and Holy Living (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2008), 28).

Physicians were trying to increase the professionalism of their field, and college/university trained physicians were called "the Faculty" or "a Faculty physician" to distinguish them from people (like quacks) who simply took the title "Dr." One of the reasons Wesley said he compiled and wrote Primitive Physick was because medical care had moved from tested and proven treatments to ones based on theories. Physicians had come to be regarded, he said, "in admiration, as persons who were something more than human ... [who] filled their writings with [an] abundance of technical terms utterly intelligible to plain men." Wesley complained about treatments that had too many ingredients or were too expensive, that could not be used without a physician's direction, and that health care books were "too dear [expensive] for poor men to buy, and too hard for plain men to understand." (Wesley, John. Primitive Physic: or An easy and natural method of curing most diseases, 14th ed. (Bristol: William Pine, 1770, reprinted Bristol: The New Room, 2003.), vii-x.)

He initially published Primitive Physick anonymously, probably to have it judged on its own merits.

Politics are everywhere, in every age. Nobody objected to Primitive Physick for the first 30 years it was in print, but in 1775 the furor began. Unfortunately Wesley made an error in one of his recipes, recommending a dose in drams rather than grains. A dram is 60 times more than a grain. There was a flurry of anonymous letters in the press, and then an apothecary, William Hawes, attacked Wesley in the newspaper. He was planning to publish a book analyzing and pointing out the errors in Primitive Physick.

Much was made of what Wesley said was a printer's error. There is no record of anyone suffering from this incorrect recipe. It must be noted, however, that the wrong dose was published in the 2nd edition (about 1750) through the 16th edition (1776). It was corrected in the 17th edition.

The public name-calling continued into 1779; Wesley was described as "a fanatical preacher, a ministerial scribbler, and a quack doctor" and one writer suggested Wesley be hanged! Facing the growing pressure by the professionalism-oriented medical community, Wesley opted to focus on the spirituality and growth of the Methodists rather than on medical care of the sick, even removing the office of "visitor of the sick" and the instructions to Methodists to visit the sick from the published official Methodist guide for practice. (Maddox, Eccentric Parent, 22-32.)

Physic Garden

      Epworth; Bawtry Hall

  In honor of John Wesley's "Primitive Physick," which used lots of natural and therefore cheap (because one could grow and dry them oneself) ingredients in simple remedies, the volunteers at Epworth Rectory have created a "Physic Garden."  "Physic" could also be spelled "physick."

  Calamint was used to treat sciatica, which is a sharp pain down one leg.













  Wild strawberry helped with cough.










  For sore throats and boils, you would use a plant called Brown turkey.











  Worms were treated with spearmint.





The Epworth Rectory's connection with Wesley is that this was his childhood home, until he left for boarding school at age 11.

"Inward and Outward Health"

Bawtry Hall, Doncaster

When his friend Alexander Knox was suffering from melancholia (depression), John Wesley wrote to him, "it will be a double blessing if you give yourself up to the Great Physician, that he may heal soul and body together.  And unquestionably this is His design.  He wants to give you ... both inward and outward health."

Since Wesley wrote THE most popular self-help health care book of the 18th century, it must be assumed that his perspective resonated with his readers.  Deborah Madden says it eloquently:

"... Wesley did not simply spiritualize disease.  It was, in fact, essential for the sick to follow the very best medical advice available. ... Primitive Physic[k] was a manual designed to help the laboring poor stave off disease by regulating their lifestyle through regimen, as well as self-medicating safely when they became sick.  This testifies to a rationally verifiable empirical method for treating illness, which was fully conversant with Georgian medical practice.  The remedies listed in Primitive Physic[k] can be traced to contemporary 'orthodox' medical sources and Wesley was not merely peddling 'kitchen-physic' recipies from a bygone era.  His empirical, experimental method sought to restore an 'ancient standard' in physic, which was also the intellectual corallary to those trials and tribulations faced by Christians as they struggled for spiritual wholeness ..."  (Madden, Deborah, ed. "Inward and Outward Health:" John Wesley's Holistic Concept of Medical Science, the Environment and Holy Living.  Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2008. p. 7.)

A couple of definitions that might help:
empirical = when what you do is based not on theory but on observations and experience
Georgian = 18th century English, since England was ruled by 4 Georges in a row (for a laugh, see www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPtYmq5qFVA or search for "Horrible Histories 4 Georges.")
"ancient standard in physic" = since Wesley believed that basic and early ("primitive") Christianity was the highest standard, he also believed that the simplest medicine was the best.

"Primitive Physick"; References

Salisbury -- Sabbath and study day

Wesley's middle name must have been "organization."  He set the Methodists up into "classes" or "bands," dividing them according to sex, marital status, and location.  He then appointed someone in each band to be “visitors of the sick” -- they were supposed to visit every sick person in their area THREE times a week and to ask about their physical and spiritual health.  Therefore, he wrote a pamphlet for the visitors called “Collection of Receipts [recipes for treating illness] for the Use of the Poor” (1745). (Madden, “Wesley as Advisor”, 178-180.)  It was 17 pages long and sold for two pennies.  (Rogal, 82.)

Due to the huge numbers of poor sick people, in 1746 he opened clinics for them, focusing on chronic illnesses.  He engaged an apothecary and a surgeon to assist.  They treated people “in droves.”

He then wrote the first Primitive Physick: or, an easy and natural method of curing most diseases (1747), which covered 119 pages and 243 illnesses.  His focus was on practicality, and the subsequent editions were revised based on patient feedback and the newest medical thought.  (Madden, “Wesley as Advisor”, 178-180.)  Remember, because of the times, anyone who was reasonably well-educated would have the knowledge and credibility to write a health care book.

Primitive Physick was written for Methodists, who were mostly poor laborers.  Thus, it sold for one shilling compared to Domestic Medicine by William Buchan (1769), which sold for six. (Madden, “Wesley as Advisor”, 182.)

Lest you think Wesley was a crackpot who published a meaningless little book, it was the most popular medical self-help text of the 18^th century!  (Porter, Roy.  Flesh in the Age of Reason: The Modern Foundations of Body and Soul.  New York: WW Norton and Company, 2003.)  

References used thus far:

Bethlem Hospital (London), www.bethlemheritage.org.uk, accessed 9 and 12 September, 2012.

Horrible Histories -- Horrible Hospitals: Georgian Doctor, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHXdhtH7Nc4 or http://www.youtube.com/user/horriblehistoriesBBC?feature=CBAQwRs%3D (then look for “Horrible Hospitals”), accessed 29 August 2012.

Madden, Deborah. “Wesley as an Advisor on Health and Healing” in Maddox, Randy and Jason Vickers, The Cambridge Companion to John Wesley (New York: Cambridge University, 2010).

Maddox, Randy. “John Wesley on Holistic Health and Healiing” in Methodist History, 46:1 (October 2007), http://archives.gcah.org:8180/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10516/564/Methodist-History-2007-10-Maddox.pdf?sequence=1, accessed 13 September 2012.

Olsen, Kirstin. Daily Life in 18th Century England (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1999.

Picard, Liza. Dr. Johnson’s London: Coffee-Houses and Climbing Boys, Medicine, Toothpaste and Gin, Poverty and Press-Gangs, Freakshows and Female Education (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000).

Porter, Roy.  Flesh in the Age of Reason: The Modern Foundations of Body and Soul.  New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2003.

Porter, Roy.  Madness: A Brief History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Rogal, Samuel. “Pills for the Poor: John Wesley’s Primitive Physick” in The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine 51 (1978), 81-90, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2595647/, accessed 16 September 2012.

Royal Pharmaceutical Museum http://www.rpharms.com/about-pharmacy/history-of-pharmacy.asp, accessed 9 September 2012.

Snyder, Howard. “Translating Wesley’s Writings,” Northern Nazarene University. Quoted from http://weley.nnu.edu/johnwesley/translating-wesley’s-writings-into-late-20th-century-american-general-english, accessed 1 September 2012.

University of Glasgow Special Collections Department. “The Curious Case of Mary Toft: 1726”, August 2009, at http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/exhibns/month/aug2009.html, accessed 16 September 2012.

Waller, Maureen. 1700: Scenes from London Life (New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2000).

Wellcome Library, London. http://images.wellcome.ac.uk, accessed Sept/Oct 2012.

Ward, Ned.  The London Spy, quoted in Waller, Maureen. 1700: Scenes from London Life (New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2000).

Wesley, John, “Journal,” quoted in Rogal, Samuel. “Pills for the Poor: John Wesley’s Primitive Physick” in The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine 51 (1978), 81-90, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2595647/, accessed 16 September 2012.

Worshipful Society of Apothecaries in London, http://www.apothecaries.org/index.php?page=101, accessed 9 September 2012.

Bath

"If they can't be cured by drinking and bathing here, they will never be cured anywhere." -- "A Practical Dissertation On The Bath Waters," Dr William Oliver, 1707.  Bath, where we went today, is pronounced "baaahhhth" like "ah" with a "b" in front or "baa" with a "th" at the end. Bath has been famous since Jesus' time for its hot water springs, which offered healing.  The Romans built a huge bathtub the size of a swimming pool with 3 other smaller pools and and an additional cold pool in the first century.  The photo shows the biggest bath, with the hot water entering the far side from under the flat stone.  The photo below is of an overflow drain and although you can't see it, there was steam coming off the water.  After the Romans left, Bath's allure faded away over the centuries and the ruined Roman baths were filled in with centuries of clutter until they were 18 feet underground.

Ah, but in 1687, Queen Mary wanted a child and bathed in the waters at Bath.  Ten months later she birthed a son and Bath was again popular for its waters. (Steves, Rick and Gene Openshaw.  Rick Steves' London 2012 (Berkeley, CA: Avon Books, 2011), 485).


The beautiful calligraphy is from a permanent display at Bath Abbey, the oldest church in England.  Matthew 9:30-31 is the text, about how Jesus healed and glory was given to God.  Healing can come in all different forms, but the glory is God's.

Back to the waters.     Now, think about the 18th century.  How often would an ordinary someone have taken a bath?  How long would it have taken to carry and then heat the water for a decent bath?  Most people simply washed their hands and face -- that's it.  So to go to Bath and sit in lovely hot water to ease your aching joints or to get rid of layers and layers of dead skin and sweat, wouldn't that have been a form of healing?

Oxford

Just briefly to all my millions of fans out there ... arrived 24 hours later than expected due to a flight from Grand Rapids (Michigan, not Minnesota) to Toronto being cancelled.  Finally got a decent night's sleep and am now coherent.

Oxford, England
I do not expect that the postings for the next 10-15 days will be very coherent or very orderly, so I apologize in advance.

I have shared a small amount with you about John Wesley, a clergyman in the Church of England, which is the official church of England.  John and his brother Charles (also a C of E clergyman) were amazing men who founded the Methodist movement.  John rode 250,000 miles on horseback and carriage and preached 40,000 sermons.  Charles was a fabulous hymn writer, with hymns now in every Christian hymnal.  His most sung hymn is probably "Hark the Herald Angels Sing."
A part of John's life that not many people realize is that he wrote and revised a book called "Primitive Physick," which offered simple and cheap remedies for (usually) poor people due to his concern for those who were poor.
Today we went to Christ Church College and its church, which are part of Oxford University. This is where John, Charles and their brother Samuel (not to be mistaken for their father Samuel or Charles' son Samuel) went to university and were ordained as clergy in the Church of England. There is a memorial plaque in the floor near the pulpit stairs (both shown in photos). (Charles and John's memories, not Sam's.) The carved griffin is at the end of a pew in the church. 
You remember I have told you that Church of England clergy got some medical training? It would have been taught to them here. John also apparently studied how to care for the sick, since he writes in 1748, "For six or seven and twenty years [since the age of 18], I had made anatomy and physic the diversion of my leisure hours; though I never properly studied them, unless for a few months when I was going to America [he was a failure as a missionary there], where I imagined I might be of some service to those who had no regular physician among them." (Wesley, John. 'A Plain Account of the People Called Methodists: in a Letter to the Rev. Mr. Perronet' in "The Works of John Wesley" (London: Wesleyan Methodist Book Room, 1872. Reprint Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2002, vol 8, 263.)
While they were at Oxford, Charles started a group derisively known as "The Holy Club" and later, "the Methodists," because of their methods of reading spiritual classics and doing good works. They visited prisoners in Oxford Prison, for example. The Prison is now a luxury hotel, and you can stay there for 200 British pounds a night, or about $360.
Our bed and breakfast for the Pilgrimage is based at Sarum College in  Salisbury, which has a wonderful cathedral built 1220-1320.  Think of a town spending the equivalent of  lifetimes to build such a grand monument to God!  Think of working on this cathedral all of your life, your father's life, and your grandfather's life, and your greatgrandfather's life.  We can see the cathedral out our window.  For good photos go to www.salisburycathedral.org.uk/gallery.php.