Author: Alternative Healer

On 20 November 1902 a child was born at Wreyland, in Devon, suffering from a rupture (the term has several meanings but likely a hernia in this case). Word of the birth eventually made its way to Cecil Torr, a local antiquarian, but with doctors unwilling or unable to act, Torr assumed that the child…

Undated illustration from the Yale University Library Collection    This is the second part of our guest blog from Julie Moore on the life and career of Isaac Chamberlain, a notorious herbalist and ‘quack doctor’ from Hertfordshire, England… Chamberlain does not seem to have been deterred by his experience before the court, which was probably…

This month we have a guest blog from Dr Julie Moore on the career of Isaac Chamberlain of Hertford. Look out for the second instalment next week… Parody of a quack medicine vendor from Punch, 1893.  Quacks were the focus of much ridicule as well as opprobrium in 19th century periodicals When Isaac Chamberlain, herbalist,…

‘La grande chirurgie’, by Guy of Chauliac (ca. 1450) shows a physician setting a disclocated arm * For more on Bone Setters and their art, see Wharton P. Hood, On Bone-Setting (and its relation to the treatment of joints…), London 1871 and Herbert A. Baker, Leaves from my Life, London 1927.

The Water Doctor, by Edgar van Heemskirk, ca.1760-1770 (detail) To start our blogging journey into the world of 19th century folk medicine, we’re diving headlong into one of the less savoury alternative medical practices: water casting. As the name suggests, water casting (or uromantia, or uroscopy) involved the visual examination of a patient’s urine to…