Wesley family and medical care

Yesterday we talked about Charles' ailments.  Today, let's talk about the whole Wesley family.  Although they lived very long lifespans for the time period -- father Samuel until 72, mother Susannah until 73, Charles until he was 80 and John until 87 years old -- they got sick.  Susannah had gout.  John had gout, diabetes, smallpox, a testicular hydrocele,* ague,** and consumption.  He was so ill with consumption in 1753 (Madden, Cheap, 270), he thought he would soon die and even wrote his own obituary (Ott, Philip.  "John Wesley on Health: A Word for Sensible Regimen."  Methodist History (vol. 18, April 1980, #3) 195).  At a time when consumption caused 1/5 to 1/6 of all deaths in London in 1701-1777 (Rusnock, 152?), he had grounds to believe so.

Bay Standard
for dropsy (edema) and
consumptive cough
Physic Garden
Epworth, UK
9 October 2012

John believed each person should take charge of their own health, working with physicians (Porter, Dorothy and Porter, Roy.  Patient's Progress: Doctors and Doctoring in Eighteenth-century England (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1989), 36).  When he was ill, he had no problem consulting a physician, and in Primitive Physic he often encourages his readers to consult a Christian physician.  Yet Primitive Physic was written for poor people, so he wanted it to be a self-help book.  Thus, he listed ingredients by their common English names rather than using the Latin labels, which angered some physicians and apothecaries (Donat, James.  "Empirical Medicine in the 18th Century: The Rev John Wesley's Search for Remedies That Work," Methodist History, vol XLIV, July 2006, #4, 216).

Samuel Westley (1636-1670)
father of John and Charles'
father Samuel
(Wesley's Chapel, 13 October 2012)

At that time, people were continually discussing illnesses, passing along medical recipes, and also sharing the ingredients (Porter, Progress, 44).  John felt confident writing physic recipes and educating about health because not only did he consult multiple texts published by physicians and test the treatments, but several members of his family and acquaintance were medical people.  His grandfather, Samuel Westley [sic], made his living as a doctor after his ejection from the Church of England in 1662.  (Westley had previously been clergy in the Church.)  John's father's brother was a wealthy apothecary or surgeon (Maser, Frederick.  The Story of John Wesley's Sisters: Seven Sisters in Search of Love (Rutland, VT: Academy Books, 1988) 17).  John's sister Emily was courted by a medical gentleman who was a Quaker, and she married an apothecary (Maser, 23 and 25).  We have already discussed how John knew George Cheyne personally, and that he himself was treated by at least three prominent physicians, including John Fothergill.

John insisted that one's physician be a Christian because only a Christian physician would consider the soul's illnesses as well as the body's sicknesses.  Non-Christian physicians help the sick by doing "... good with regard to their bodily health.  But [they] cannot do them more good with regard to their souls, which are of infinitely greater importance." (Wesley, John.  Sermons, vol. 3, semon 98, 387, quoted in Laffey, Paul. "John Wesley on Insanity," History of Psychiatry, 12:467, October 2001, http://hpy.sagepub.com/content/12/48/467.full.pdf+html, accessed 27 September 2012.) 

*hydrocele = a pocket of fluid, "A watery rupture."
**ague = "An intermitting fever, with cold fits succeeded by hot" (Johnson.)