Women played a part in treating and caring for the ill and distressed
in a number of ways during the century. A few women dispensed medicine
and enjoyed reputations as doctors, but it was in the field of
obstetrics and as midwives that they made their most important
contributions. Although women did what might be described generally as
nursing, their contribution in this area was relatively insignificant
when compared with the importance of the female nurse today. Any
discussion of the place of women in seventeenth-century medicine should
note the relationship between women, witchcraft, and medicine.
Although the references leave no doubt of the existence of female
doctors and dispensers of medicines, the mention of them is infrequent.
Mrs. Mary Seal, the widow of a Dr. Power, for example, administered
medicine to Richard Dunbar in 1700. The wife of Edward Good was sought
out in 1678 to cure a head sore and another "doctress" impressed the
Reverend John Clayton, who had some insights into medical science
himself, with her ability to cure the bite of a rattlesnake by using
the drug dittany. In the same year that Good's wife was sought to treat
the head sore, a Mrs. Grendon dispensed medicine to an individual who
had injured his eyes in a fight. The exact status of these women,
however, is unknown; it is highly unlikely that the female practicing
medicine enjoyed the professional standing of a Dr. Pott or a Dr.
Bohun--an old female slave also appears in the record as a doctor.
With medical knowledge limited and antisepsis unknown, the expectant
mother of the seventeenth century fared better with a midwife than she
would have with a physician. The midwife, whose training consisted of
experience and apprenticeship at best, allowed the birth to be as free
from human interference as possible and did not do a pre-delivery
infection-producing examination.
Both the fees and the prestige of the midwife, judging by contemporary
records from other colonies, were high. Unfortunately, the early
Virginia sources throw little light on the activities of the midwife in
this colony. Among the scattered references from Virginia records are
found charges of 100 pounds of tobacco for the service of a midwife;
the presence of two midwives assisted by two nurses and other women at
a single birth; the payment of twelve hens for obstetrical services;
and the delivery of a bastard child by a midwife.
Nursing duties were probably taken on by both men and women in addition
to their regular occupations. The duties consisted not only of tending
the sick--and there is no reason to believe this was done under the
supervision of a physician--but also of burying the dead and arranging
the funerals. While the patient lived, the nurse prepared food, washed
linen, and did other chores to make the patient comfortable. When death
came, the nurse was "the good woman who shall dress me and put me in my
coffin," and who provided "entertainment of those that came to bury him
with 3 vollys of shott & diging his grave with the trouble of his
funeral included."
The medical ramifications of witchcraft have been suggested. One of the
most interesting Virginia court cases of the century had as its
principal subject a woman accused of the power to cause sickness. In an
age when weapon salve was wiped on the weapon and not the wound, and
when astrology was intimately associated with the practice of medicine,
it is not surprising to find, also, the witch and her power to cause
disease. Goodwife Wright stood accused of such powers in the colony's
general court on September 11, 1626.
Goodwife Wright had caused, according to her accusers, the illness of a
husband, wife, and child out of a spirit of revenge; and she was able
to prophesy deaths as well. The details of the case brought against
this woman accused of witchcraft reveal the more bizarre medical
practices of the time. Goodwife Wright expected to serve as the midwife
but the expectant mother refused to employ her upon learning that
Wright was left-handed. Soon after affronting Wright in such a manner,
the mother complained that her breast "grew dangerouslie sore" and her
husband and child both fell sick within a few weeks. With
circumstantial evidence of this kind, suspicion had little difficulty
in linking the midwife with the sicknesses.
Testimony revealed that on another occasion she had used her powers to
counter the actions of another suspected witch. Having been informed
that the other witch was causing the sickness, Wright had the ill
person throw a red-hot horseshoe into her own urine. The result,
according to witnesses was that the offending witch was "sick at harte"
as long as the horseshoe was hot, and the sick person well when it had
cooled.