How to read Simon Forman's casebooks: Medicine, astrology, and gender in Elizabethan London

Social History of Medicine

Volumn 12, Issue 1, 1999, Pages 3-18

  Kassel, Lauren ^a  

^a PEMBROKE COLLEGE   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Astrology; Casebooks; Early modern; Gender; Medicine; Simon Forman; Women

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; DIAGNOSIS; DOCTOR PATIENT RELATION; FEMALE; HISTORY; HUMAN; MYSTICISM; PUBLICATION; SEXUAL BEHAVIOR; THERAPY; UNITED KINGDOM; WOMEN'S HEALTH;

ASTROLOGY; DIAGNOSIS; FEMALE; GREAT BRITAIN; HISTORY, 16TH CENTURY; HISTORY, 17TH CENTURY; HUMANS; MANUSCRIPTS, MEDICAL; PHYSICIAN-PATIENT RELATIONS; SEXUAL BEHAVIOR; THERAPEUTICS; WOMEN'S HEALTH;

EID: 0033113811     PISSN: 0951631X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/shm/12.1.3     Document Type: Article

References (103)

1. B. Jonson, Epicoene, Act IV, scene 1, lines 139-40. This was acted in 1609 and first printed in 1616.
2. Most of these manuscripts are preserved in the Ashmole Collection in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. For a full bibliography of Forman's manuscripts, see L. Kassell, 'Simon Forman's Philosophy of Medicine: Medicine, Astrology and Alchemy in London, c.1580-1611' (unpublished D.Phil, thesis, University of Oxford, 1997).
3. W. McElwee, The Murder of Sir Thomas Overbury (London, 1952); D. Lindley, The Trials of Frances Howard: Fact and Fiction at the Court of King James (London, 1993).
4. W. McElwee, The Murder of Sir Thomas Overbury (London, 1952); D. Lindley, The Trials of Frances Howard: Fact and Fiction at the Court of King James (London, 1993).
5. J. O. Halliwell (ed.), The Autobiography and Personal Diary of Dr Simon Forman (London, 1849). See also idem., 'Dr Simon Forman's Diary', The Archœologist, and Journal of Antiquarian Science, 1 (1841-2), 44-7; idem., Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare (Brighton, 1881),p. 78.
6. J. O. Halliwell (ed.), The Autobiography and Personal Diary of Dr Simon Forman (London, 1849). See also idem., 'Dr Simon Forman's Diary', The Archœologist, and Journal of Antiquarian Science, 1 (1841-2), 44-7; idem., Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare (Brighton, 1881),p. 78.
7. J. O. Halliwell (ed.), The Autobiography and Personal Diary of Dr Simon Forman (London, 1849). See also idem., 'Dr Simon Forman's Diary', The Archœologist, and Journal of Antiquarian Science, 1 (1841-2), 44-7; idem., Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare (Brighton, 1881),p. 78.
8. A. L. Rowse, Simon Forman: Sex and Society in Shakespeare's Age (London, 1974).
9. Bodleian Library, MSS Ashmole (hereafter Ashm.) 234, 226, 195, 219, 236, 411.
10. D. C. Allen, The Star-Crossed Renaissance: The Quarrel about Astrology and Its Influence in England (London, 1943).
11. Allen, Star-Crossed; B. Capp, Astrology and the Popular Press: English Almanacs 1500-1899 (London, 1979); A. Chapman, 'Astrological Medicine', in C. Webster (ed.), Health, Medicine and Mortality in the Sixteenth Century (Cambridge, 1979), pp. 275-300; P. Curry, Prophecy and Power: Astrology in Early Modem England (Cambridge, 1989); A. Geneva, Astrology and the Seventeenth Century Mind: William Lilly and the Language of the Stars (Manchester, 1995).
12. Allen, Star-Crossed; B. Capp, Astrology and the Popular Press: English Almanacs 1500-1899 (London, 1979); A. Chapman, 'Astrological Medicine', in C. Webster (ed.), Health, Medicine and Mortality in the Sixteenth Century (Cambridge, 1979), pp. 275-300; P. Curry, Prophecy and Power: Astrology in Early Modem England (Cambridge, 1989); A. Geneva, Astrology and the Seventeenth Century Mind: William Lilly and the Language of the Stars (Manchester, 1995).
13. Allen, Star-Crossed; B. Capp, Astrology and the Popular Press: English Almanacs 1500-1899 (London, 1979); A. Chapman, 'Astrological Medicine', in C. Webster (ed.), Health, Medicine and Mortality in the Sixteenth Century (Cambridge, 1979), pp. 275-300; P. Curry, Prophecy and Power: Astrology in Early Modem England (Cambridge, 1989); A. Geneva, Astrology and the Seventeenth Century Mind: William Lilly and the Language of the Stars (Manchester, 1995).
14. Allen, Star-Crossed; B. Capp, Astrology and the Popular Press: English Almanacs 1500-1899 (London, 1979); A. Chapman, 'Astrological Medicine', in C. Webster (ed.), Health, Medicine and Mortality in the Sixteenth Century (Cambridge, 1979), pp. 275-300; P. Curry, Prophecy and Power: Astrology in Early Modem England (Cambridge, 1989); A. Geneva, Astrology and the Seventeenth Century Mind: William Lilly and the Language of the Stars (Manchester, 1995).
15. Allen, Star-Crossed; B. Capp, Astrology and the Popular Press: English Almanacs 1500-1899 (London, 1979); A. Chapman, 'Astrological Medicine', in C. Webster (ed.), Health, Medicine and Mortality in the Sixteenth Century (Cambridge, 1979), pp. 275-300; P. Curry, Prophecy and Power: Astrology in Early Modem England (Cambridge, 1989); A. Geneva, Astrology and the Seventeenth Century Mind: William Lilly and the Language of the Stars (Manchester, 1995).
16. Rowse, Simon Fonnan.
17. For this approach to non-astrological casebooks, see J. Lane (ed.), John Hall and his Patients: The Medical Practice of Shakespeare's Son-in-Law (Stratford-upon-Avon, 1996).
18. M. MacDonald, 'The Career of Astrological Medicine in England', in O. Grell and A. Cunningham (eds.), Religio Medici: Medicine and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England (Aldershot, 1996), pp. 62-90; MacDonald, Mystical Bedlam: Madness, Anxiety, and Healing in Seventeenth-Century England (Cambridge, 1981); R. Sawyer, 'Patients, Healers and Disease in the Southeast Midlands, 1597-1634' (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1986); K. Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, 2nd edn (Harmondsworth, 1973).
19. M. MacDonald, 'The Career of Astrological Medicine in England', in O. Grell and A. Cunningham (eds.), Religio Medici: Medicine and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England (Aldershot, 1996), pp. 62-90; MacDonald, Mystical Bedlam: Madness, Anxiety, and Healing in Seventeenth-Century England (Cambridge, 1981); R. Sawyer, 'Patients, Healers and Disease in the Southeast Midlands, 1597-1634' (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1986); K. Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, 2nd edn (Harmondsworth, 1973).
20. R. Sawyer, 'Patients, Healers and Disease in the Southeast Midlands, 1597-1634' (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1986);
21. R. Sawyer, 'Patients, Healers and Disease in the Southeast Midlands, 1597-1634' (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1986); K. Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, 2nd edn (Harmondsworth, 1973).
22. For a brief study of Forman's astrological medicine, see B. Traister, 'Medicine and Astrology in Elizabethan England: The Case of Simon Forman', Transactions and Studies of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, 11 (1989), 279-97. For the practice of another astrologer physician, Richard Napier, rector of Great Linford, Buckinghamshire, who learned astrology from Forman, and who was in devotion and character very different from him, see MacDonald, Mystical Bedlam, esp. pp. 36-7; Sawyer, 'Patients, Healers and Disease', esp. p. 469; Thomas, Religion, p. 365. For studies of non-astrological practitioners, see L. M. Beier, Sufferers and Healers: The Experience of Illness in Seventeenth-Century England (London, 1987). An exception was the practice of Joseph Binns, a surgeon, who saw more men than women: ibid. pp. 55-6. For the London College of Physicians the popularity of irregular medical practitioners with women was axiomatic: M. Pelling, 'Compromised by Gender: the Role of the Male Medical Practitioner in Early Modern England', in H. Marland and M. Pelling (eds.), The Task of Healing: Medicine, Religion and Gender in England and the Netherlands, 1450-1800 (Rotterdam, 1996), p. 112.
23. For a brief study of Forman's astrological medicine, see B. Traister, 'Medicine and Astrology in Elizabethan England: The Case of Simon Forman', Transactions and Studies of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, 11 (1989), 279-97. For the practice of another astrologer physician, Richard Napier, rector of Great Linford, Buckinghamshire, who learned astrology from Forman, and who was in devotion and character very different from him, see MacDonald, Mystical Bedlam, esp. pp. 36-7; Sawyer, 'Patients, Healers and Disease', esp. p. 469; Thomas, Religion, p. 365. For studies of non-astrological practitioners, see L. M. Beier, Sufferers and Healers: The Experience of Illness in Seventeenth-Century England (London, 1987). An exception was the practice of Joseph Binns, a surgeon, who saw more men than women: ibid. pp. 55-6. For the London College of Physicians the popularity of irregular medical practitioners with women was axiomatic: M. Pelling, 'Compromised by Gender: the Role of the Male Medical Practitioner in Early Modern England', in H. Marland and M. Pelling (eds.), The Task of Healing: Medicine, Religion and Gender in England and the Netherlands, 1450-1800 (Rotterdam, 1996), p. 112.
24. For a brief study of Forman's astrological medicine, see B. Traister, 'Medicine and Astrology in Elizabethan England: The Case of Simon Forman', Transactions and Studies of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, 11 (1989), 279-97. For the practice of another astrologer physician, Richard Napier, rector of Great Linford, Buckinghamshire, who learned astrology from Forman, and who was in devotion and character very different from him, see MacDonald, Mystical Bedlam, esp. pp. 36-7; Sawyer, 'Patients, Healers and Disease', esp. p. 469; Thomas, Religion, p. 365. For studies of non-astrological practitioners, see L. M. Beier, Sufferers and Healers: The Experience of Illness in Seventeenth-Century England (London, 1987). An exception was the practice of Joseph Binns, a surgeon, who saw more men than women: ibid. pp. 55-6. For the London College of Physicians the popularity of irregular medical practitioners with women was axiomatic: M. Pelling, 'Compromised by Gender: the Role of the Male Medical Practitioner in Early Modern England', in H. Marland and M. Pelling (eds.), The Task of Healing: Medicine, Religion and Gender in England and the Netherlands, 1450-1800 (Rotterdam, 1996), p. 112.
25. For a brief study of Forman's astrological medicine, see B. Traister, 'Medicine and Astrology in Elizabethan England: The Case of Simon Forman', Transactions and Studies of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, 11 (1989), 279-97. For the practice of another astrologer physician, Richard Napier, rector of Great Linford, Buckinghamshire, who learned astrology from Forman, and who was in devotion and character very different from him, see MacDonald, Mystical Bedlam, esp. pp. 36-7; Sawyer, 'Patients, Healers and Disease', esp. p. 469; Thomas, Religion, p. 365. For studies of non-astrological practitioners, see L. M. Beier, Sufferers and Healers: The Experience of Illness in Seventeenth-Century England (London, 1987). An exception was the practice of Joseph Binns, a surgeon, who saw more men than women: ibid. pp. 55-6. For the London College of Physicians the popularity of irregular medical practitioners with women was axiomatic: M. Pelling, 'Compromised by Gender: the Role of the Male Medical Practitioner in Early Modern England', in H. Marland and M. Pelling (eds.), The Task of Healing: Medicine, Religion and Gender in England and the Netherlands, 1450-1800 (Rotterdam, 1996), p. 112.
26. For a brief study of Forman's astrological medicine, see B. Traister, 'Medicine and Astrology in Elizabethan England: The Case of Simon Forman', Transactions and Studies of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, 11 (1989), 279-97. For the practice of another astrologer physician, Richard Napier, rector of Great Linford, Buckinghamshire, who learned astrology from Forman, and who was in devotion and character very different from him, see MacDonald, Mystical Bedlam, esp. pp. 36-7; Sawyer, 'Patients, Healers and Disease', esp. p. 469; Thomas, Religion, p. 365. For studies of non-astrological practitioners, see L. M. Beier, Sufferers and Healers: The Experience of Illness in Seventeenth-Century England (London, 1987). An exception was the practice of Joseph Binns, a surgeon, who saw more men than women: ibid. pp. 55-6. For the London College of Physicians the popularity of irregular medical practitioners with women was axiomatic: M. Pelling, 'Compromised by Gender: the Role of the Male Medical Practitioner in Early Modern England', in H. Marland and M. Pelling (eds.), The Task of Healing: Medicine, Religion and Gender in England and the Netherlands, 1450-1800 (Rotterdam, 1996), p. 112.
27. For a brief study of Forman's astrological medicine, see B. Traister, 'Medicine and Astrology in Elizabethan England: The Case of Simon Forman', Transactions and Studies of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, 11 (1989), 279-97. For the practice of another astrologer physician, Richard Napier, rector of Great Linford, Buckinghamshire, who learned astrology from Forman, and who was in devotion and character very different from him, see MacDonald, Mystical Bedlam, esp. pp. 36-7; Sawyer, 'Patients, Healers and Disease', esp. p. 469; Thomas, Religion, p. 365. For studies of non-astrological practitioners, see L. M. Beier, Sufferers and Healers: The Experience of Illness in Seventeenth-Century England (London, 1987). An exception was the practice of Joseph Binns, a surgeon, who saw more men than women: ibid. pp. 55-6. For the London College of Physicians the popularity of irregular medical practitioners with women was axiomatic: M. Pelling, 'Compromised by Gender: the Role of the Male Medical Practitioner in Early Modern England', in H. Marland and M. Pelling (eds.), The Task of Healing: Medicine, Religion and Gender in England and the Netherlands, 1450-1800 (Rotterdam, 1996), p. 112.
28. For a brief study of Forman's astrological medicine, see B. Traister, 'Medicine and Astrology in Elizabethan England: The Case of Simon Forman', Transactions and Studies of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, 11 (1989), 279-97. For the practice of another astrologer physician, Richard Napier, rector of Great Linford, Buckinghamshire, who learned astrology from Forman, and who was in devotion and character very different from him, see MacDonald, Mystical Bedlam, esp. pp. 36-7; Sawyer, 'Patients, Healers and Disease', esp. p. 469; Thomas, Religion, p. 365. For studies of non-astrological practitioners, see L. M. Beier, Sufferers and Healers: The Experience of Illness in Seventeenth-Century England (London, 1987). An exception was the practice of Joseph Binns, a surgeon, who saw more men than women: ibid. pp. 55-6. For the London College of Physicians the popularity of irregular medical practitioners with women was axiomatic: M. Pelling, 'Compromised by Gender: the Role of the Male Medical Practitioner in Early Modern England', in H. Marland and M. Pelling (eds.), The Task of Healing: Medicine, Religion and Gender in England and the Netherlands, 1450-1800 (Rotterdam, 1996), p. 112.
29. See for instance Beier, Sufferers and Healers, pp. 217, 241; MacDonald, Mystical Bedlam, p. 39; S. Rappaport, Worlds Within Worlds: Structures of Life in Sixteenth-Century London (Cambridge, 1989), p. 11.
30. See for instance Beier, Sufferers and Healers, pp. 217, 241; MacDonald, Mystical Bedlam, p. 39; S. Rappaport, Worlds Within Worlds: Structures of Life in Sixteenth-Century London (Cambridge, 1989), p. 11.
31. See for instance Beier, Sufferers and Healers, pp. 217, 241; MacDonald, Mystical Bedlam, p. 39; S. Rappaport, Worlds Within Worlds: Structures of Life in Sixteenth-Century London (Cambridge, 1989), p. 11.
32. These conclusions are based on my M.Sc. dissertation, 'Casting Figures for Disease: The Patients of an Astrological Medical Practitioner in London, 1596-1598' (Oxford, 1994).
33. A. Fletcher, Gender, Sex and Subordination in England 1500-1800 (New Haven, 1995), pp. 73-4.
34. Ashm. 1495, 355, 363. Of the latter, there are four versions: Ashm. 389, 403 and B.L., Sloane MS 99. For the most part I rely on the fullest version, Ashm. 363.
35. Ashm. 363, fols. 1-9v, esp. 2v-3. MacDonald relies on this introduction for his description of Napier's methods for conducting a consultation: Mystical Bedlam, p. 26. An early version of this introduction appears in Ashm. 1495, fols. 29-32.
36. A nativity was based on the time of birth, a decumbiture on the time a person fell ill, an horary question on the time the question was asked, and an election was to determine the most propitious time to do something.
37. These methods were described in numerous printed astrological handbooks of the seventeenth century. See for instance William Lilly's Christian Astrology (London, 1647). For other accounts of Forman's medical astrology, see R. Dunn, 'The Status of Astrology in Elizabethan England 1558-1603' (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge University, 1992), pp. 112-21; Sawyer, 'Patients, Healers and Disease', pp. 279-87.
38. These methods were described in numerous printed astrological handbooks of the seventeenth century. See for instance William Lilly's Christian Astrology (London, 1647). For other accounts of Forman's medical astrology, see R. Dunn, 'The Status of Astrology in Elizabethan England 1558-1603' (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge University, 1992), pp. 112-21; Sawyer, 'Patients, Healers and Disease', pp. 279-87.
39. These methods were described in numerous printed astrological handbooks of the seventeenth century. See for instance William Lilly's Christian Astrology (London, 1647). For other accounts of Forman's medical astrology, see R. Dunn, 'The Status of Astrology in Elizabethan England 1558-1603' (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge University, 1992), pp. 112-21; Sawyer, 'Patients, Healers and Disease', pp. 279-87.
40. These are from Forman's judgements on the first house, Ashm. 363, fols. 30v-44v.
41. Ashm. 195, fols. 98, 111; 219, fol. 135; 411, fols. 32v, 50v, 103v; 208, fol. 63v; 392, fol. 142. Forman had also lived in Lambeth for the first six months of 1598: Ashm. 226, fol. 268.
42. Ashm. 208, Item 13, fol. 225v;' 802, Item 13, fol. 133. The licence is Ashm. 1301, and Ashm. 1763 is Ashmole's copy of this.
43. Royal College of Physicians, Annals (hereafter Annals), 30 March 1607 (vol. 2, pp. 191-2).
44. M. Pelling and C. Webster, 'Medical Practitioners', in Webster (ed.), Health, Medicine and Mortality (Cambridge, 1979), pp. 165-235. See also Pelling, The Strength of the Opposition: The College of Physicians and Irregular Medical Practice in Early Modern London, Macmillan, forthcoming.
45. M. Pelling and C. Webster, 'Medical Practitioners', in Webster (ed.), Health, Medicine and Mortality (Cambridge, 1979), pp. 165-235. See also Pelling, The Strength of the Opposition: The College of Physicians and Irregular Medical Practice in Early Modern London, Macmillan, forthcoming.
46. Chapman, 'Astrological Medicine', p. 283.
47. Annals, 7 Feb. 1595 (vol. 2, p. 97).
48. Ashm. 1495, fols. 29, 31v-32; 1491, pp. 1274-5.
49. Ashm. 1495, fol. 32; 363, fol. 2.
50. Ashm. 403, fol. 81.
51. Ashm. 1495, fol. 486.
52. Ashm. 1491, fol. 1274. I am grateful to Mark Jenner for defining 'sedge'.
53. Pelling, 'Compromised by Gender', pp. 107, 111.
54. Ashm. 1495, fol. 31v.
55. Napier seems also to have done this, though MacDonald and Sawyer overlook it.
56. Meaning to improve or worsen, to mend or decline.
57. Ashm. 1495, fols. 494, 502.
58. Ashm. 234, fols. 28v-29.
59. See for instance, Ashm. 234, fols. 14, 16v, 34.
60. Ashm. 1495, fol. 32; 363 fols. 159-62v, 170v-71.
61. In most cases the casebooks do not record when a patient returned to have a therapy administered. It seems that there might have been another notebook in which this, as well as costs and payments, would have been recorded.
62. Ashm. 363, fol. 3r-v.
63. For the subject of trust in sixteenth-century Latin medical literature, see W. Schleiner, Medical Ethics in the Renaissance (Washington, DC, 1995), pp. 6-7, 25.
64. Ashm. 1495, fol. 477v.
65. Ashm. 1495, fol. 486v. This case is recorded in Forman's casebooks, Ashm. 234, fol. 8. See also Ashm. 1495, fols. 486, 500v, 503.
66. Ashm. 363, fol. 5.
67. For Forman's notes on bloodletting, see Ashm. 1494, pp. 305-20. Cf. Rowse, Simon Forman, p. 10.
68. For recipes dated 1595 see Ashm. 1495, fols. 1-2. For recipes on the endpapers of casebooks, see Ashm. 411, fol. 101 where Forman noted several diet drinks; also Ashm. 219, fols. 51 v-52. For recipes within the casebooks, see Ashm. 195, fols. 88, 52v; Ashm. 236, fols. 12, 87v; a recipe for sore eyes, Ashm. 411, fol. 49v. For a list of herbs and minerals, see Ashm. 219, fol. 182. Forman recorded other recipes in his alchemical notebooks, Ashm. 1490, 1491, 1494.
69. Had Forman's correspondence with his patients survived, we might have a clearer record of how therapies were conducted when the patient was not present. For a letter inserted in the casebooks, see Ashm. 236, fol. 23.
70. Cf. H. Cook, 'Good Advice and Little Medicine: The Professional Authority of Early Modern English Physicians', Journal of British Studies, 33 (1994), 1-31.
71. Ashm. 389, fol. 1. This version of the guide to astrology begins with a verse preface which is absent from the other versions. For a discussion of physicians lying to their patients, see Schleiner, Medical Ethics, pp. 45-8.
72. N. Siraisi, 'Girolamo Cardano and the Art of Medical Narrative', Journal of the History of Ideas, 52 (1991), 581-602.
73. L. Dixon, Perilous Chastity: Women and Illness in Pre-Enlightenment Art and Medicine (Ithaca, 1995).
74. Although Forman occasionally described someone as a lady or a servant, he did not consistently record the status of his patients.
75. For the conclusion that Forman was a gynaecological expert, see Traister, 'Medicine and Astrology', p. 297.
76. P. Crawford, 'Attitudes to Menstruation in Seventeenth-Century England', Past and Present, 91 (1981), 54; Fletcher, Gender, Sex and Subordination, pp. 63-5; I. Maclean, The Renaissance Notion of Woman: A Study in the Fortunes of Scholasticism and Medical Science in European Intellectual Life (Cambridge, 1980); A. Laurence, 'Women's Psychological Disorders in Seventeenth-Century Britain', in A. Angerman et al. (eds.), Current Issues in Women's History (London, 1989), pp. 203-19; H. Smith, 'Gynecology and Ideology in Seventeenth-Century England', in B. A. Carroll (ed.), Liberating Women's History (Urbana, 1976), pp. 99-101. Forman is used as an example throughout the literature on women's illnesses, sexuality and medicine.
77. P. Crawford, 'Attitudes to Menstruation in Seventeenth-Century England', Past and Present, 91 (1981), 54; Fletcher, Gender, Sex and Subordination, pp. 63-5; I. Maclean, The Renaissance Notion of Woman: A Study in the Fortunes of Scholasticism and Medical Science in European Intellectual Life (Cambridge, 1980); A. Laurence, 'Women's Psychological Disorders in Seventeenth-Century Britain', in A. Angerman et al. (eds.), Current Issues in Women's History (London, 1989), pp. 203-19; H. Smith, 'Gynecology and Ideology in Seventeenth-Century England', in B. A. Carroll (ed.), Liberating Women's History (Urbana, 1976), pp. 99-101. Forman is used as an example throughout the literature on women's illnesses, sexuality and medicine.
78. P. Crawford, 'Attitudes to Menstruation in Seventeenth-Century England', Past and Present, 91 (1981), 54; Fletcher, Gender, Sex and Subordination, pp. 63-5; I. Maclean, The Renaissance Notion of Woman: A Study in the Fortunes of Scholasticism and Medical Science in European Intellectual Life (Cambridge, 1980); A. Laurence, 'Women's Psychological Disorders in Seventeenth-Century Britain', in A. Angerman et al. (eds.), Current Issues in Women's History (London, 1989), pp. 203-19; H. Smith, 'Gynecology and Ideology in Seventeenth-Century England', in B. A. Carroll (ed.), Liberating Women's History (Urbana, 1976), pp. 99-101. Forman is used as an example throughout the literature on women's illnesses, sexuality and medicine.
79. P. Crawford, 'Attitudes to Menstruation in Seventeenth-Century England', Past and Present, 91 (1981), 54; Fletcher, Gender, Sex and Subordination, pp. 63-5; I. Maclean, The Renaissance Notion of Woman: A Study in the Fortunes of Scholasticism and Medical Science in European Intellectual Life (Cambridge, 1980); A. Laurence, 'Women's Psychological Disorders in Seventeenth-Century Britain', in A. Angerman et al. (eds.), Current Issues in Women's History (London, 1989), pp. 203-19; H. Smith, 'Gynecology and Ideology in Seventeenth-Century England', in B. A. Carroll (ed.), Liberating Women's History (Urbana, 1976), pp. 99-101. Forman is used as an example throughout the literature on women's illnesses, sexuality and medicine.
80. P. Crawford, 'Attitudes to Menstruation in Seventeenth-Century England', Past and Present, 91 (1981), 54; Fletcher, Gender, Sex and Subordination, pp. 63-5; I. Maclean, The Renaissance Notion of Woman: A Study in the Fortunes of Scholasticism and Medical Science in European Intellectual Life (Cambridge, 1980); A. Laurence, 'Women's Psychological Disorders in Seventeenth-Century Britain', in A. Angerman et al. (eds.), Current Issues in Women's History (London, 1989), pp. 203-19; H. Smith, 'Gynecology and Ideology in Seventeenth-Century England', in B. A. Carroll (ed.), Liberating Women's History (Urbana, 1976), pp. 99-101. Forman is used as an example throughout the literature on women's illnesses, sexuality and medicine.
81. Ashm. 389, fol. 2. Cf. 'trust not a woman when she weeps', 'women have tears of dissimulation as well as sorrow', 'women laugh when they can and weep when they will', 'women weep and sicken when they list' (K. U. Henderson and B. F. McManus (eds.), Half Humankind: Contexts and Texts of the Controversy about Women in England 1540-1640 (Urbana, 1985), p. 62, quoted in Fletcher, Gender, Sex and Subordination, pp. 73-4).
82. Ashm. 389, fol. 2. Cf. 'trust not a woman when she weeps', 'women have tears of dissimulation as well as sorrow', 'women laugh when they can and weep when they will', 'women weep and sicken when they list' (K. U. Henderson and B. F. McManus (eds.), Half Humankind: Contexts and Texts of the Controversy about Women in England 1540-1640 (Urbana, 1985), p. 62, quoted in Fletcher, Gender, Sex and Subordination, pp. 73-4).
83. Ashm. 363, fol. 198v. In an earlier version Forman, less cynically, suggested that the first question was whether or not the woman was married: Ashm. 1495, fol. 29.
84. Ashm. 390, fols. 202-3v. Forman gave folio references to Bonatti, De Astronomia Tractatus X (Basel, 1550).
85. M. MacDonald (ed.), Witchcraft and Hysteria in Elizabethan London: Edward Jorden and the Mary Glover Case (London, 1991); Schleiner, Medical Ethics, p. 112.
86. M. MacDonald (ed.), Witchcraft and Hysteria in Elizabethan London: Edward Jorden and the Mary Glover Case (London, 1991); Schleiner, Medical Ethics, p. 112.
87. King's College, Cambridge, MS 16, fols. 78v-80v; see M. Edmond, 'Simon Forman's VadeMecum', Book Collector, 26 (1977), 56.
88. B. Traister (ed.) "'Matrix and the Pain Thereof': A Sixteenth-Century Gynaecological Essay', Medical History, 35 (1991), 436-51. The manuscript is Ashm. 390, fol. 161-8. 'Matrix', a fair copy, is bound alongside a draft treatise on questions of pregnancy (Ashm. 190-9). Forman also included sections on diseases of women in his guides to astrology, though he either excised them or left them incomplete (Ashm. 363, fols. 102-10v; 1495, p. 506).
89. MacDonald, Witchcraft and Hysteria, p. xii.
90. Traister, 'Matrix', p. 443.
91. Ibid. p. 443. For possible resonances with Hippocratic ideas, see H. King, Hippocrates' Woman: Reading the Female Body in Ancient Greece (London, 1998), p. 136.
92. Ibid. p. 443. For possible resonances with Hippocratic ideas, see H. King, Hippocrates' Woman: Reading the Female Body in Ancient Greece (London, 1998), p. 136.
93. Ibid. p. 444.
94. Ibid. p. 442.
95. Ashm. 390, fol. 190r-v.
96. Although Forman's reference to the expertise of women may in part be artful, the extent to which medical authors used this trope requires further study. For the contrast between the knowledge of physicians and that of old women and empirics, see C. Webster, The Great Instauration: Science, Medicine and Reform, 1626-1660 (London, 1975), p. 248.
97. Traister, 'Matrix', pp. 441, 445. See p. 442 for another description of a skilful midwife inserting her hand into the matrix.
98. See Ashm. 234, fol. 33v; 226, fols. 35, 193v, 208v, 232v, 300v; 236, fol. 183; 411, fol. 101.
99. Ashm. 1495, fol. 503v.
100. Pelling, 'Compromised by Gender', p. 107.
101. Ashm. 363, fols. 138v-[40]v.
102. R. N[iccols], Sir Thomas Oveiburies Visions (Oxford, 1616).
103. A. W[eldon], The Court and Character of King James ([London], 1650),p. 110.