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Constructions of Cancer in Early Modern England, 1580-1720: Ravenous Natures Constructions of cancer in Early Modern England, 1580-1720: ravenous natures Book Published Version Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY) Open Access Skuse, A. (2015) Constructions of cancer in Early Modern England, 1580-1720: ravenous natures. Palgrave Macmillan, London. ISBN 9781137487537 doi: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137487537 Available at http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/69944/ It is advisable to refer to the publisher’s version if you intend to cite from the work. See Guidance on citing . To link to this article DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/9781137487537 Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan All outputs in CentAUR are protected by Intellectual Property Rights law, including copyright law. Copyright and IPR is retained by the creators or other copyright holders. Terms and conditions for use of this material are defined in the End User Agreement . www.reading.ac.uk/centaur CentAUR Central Archive at the University of Reading Reading’s research outputs online Constructions of Cancer in Early Modern England Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine Series editors: Professor Sharon Ruston (Lancaster University, UK), Professor Alice Jenkins (University of Glasgow, UK) and Professor Catherine Belling (Northwestern University, USA) Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine is an exciting new series that focuses on one of the most vibrant and interdisciplinary areas in literary studies. Comprising academic monographs, essay collections, and Palgrave Pivot books, the series will emphasize a historical approach to its subjects. The series will cover all aspects of this rich and varied field and is open to new and emerging topics as well as established ones. Sharon Ruston is Chair in Romanticism and Research Director for the Department of English and Creative Writing at Lancaster University, UK. Alice Jenkins is Professor of Victorian Literature and Culture at Glasgow University, UK. She is a co-founder and former Chair of the British Society for Literature and Science. Catherine Belling is Associate Professor in Medical Humanities and Bioethics at Northwestern University, USA. She is also the Executive Editor of the journal Literature and Medicine . Editorial Board: Steven Connor, Professor of English, University of Cambridge, UK; Lisa Diedrich, Associate Professor in Women’s and Gender Studies, Stony Brook University, USA; N Katherine Hayles, Professor of English, Duke University, USA; Peter Middleton, Professor of English, University of Southampton, UK; Sally Shuttleworth, Professorial Fellow in English, St Anne’s College, University of Oxford, UK; Susan Squier, Professor of Women’s Studies and English, Pennsylvania State University, USA; Martin Willis, Professor of Science, Literature and Communication, University of Westminster, UK Titles include: Markus Iseli THOMAS DE QUINCEY AND THE COGNITIVE UNCONSCIOUS Esther L. Jones MEDICINE AND ETHICS IN BLACK WOMEN’S SPECULATIVE FICTION Ewa Barbara Luczak BREEDING AND EUGENICS IN THE AMERICAN LITERARY IMAGINATION Heredity Rules in the Twentieth Century Alanna Skuse CONSTRUCTIONS OF CANCER IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND (Open Access) Ravenous Natures Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–1374–4538–4 hardback 978–1–1374–4543–8 paperback (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and one of the ISBNs quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England Constructions of Cancer in Early Modern England Ravenous Natures Alanna Skuse Fellow at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington DC Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/version4 © Alanna Skuse 2015 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2015 978-1-137-48752-0 The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Open access: Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/version4 First published 2015 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of Nature American, Inc., 75 Varick Street, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-137-56919-6 ISBN 978-1-137-48753-7 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9781137487537 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Contents List of Illustrations vi Acknowledgements vii Referencing Conventions viii Introduction 1 1 What Was Cancer? Definition, Diagnosis and Cause 20 2 Cancer and the Gendered Body 40 3 ‘It Is, Say Some, of a Ravenous Nature’: Zoomorphic Images of Cancer 61 4 Cancerous Growth and Malignancy 74 5 Wolves’ Tongues and Mercury: Pharmaceutical Cures for Cancer 94 6 ‘Cannot You Use a Loving Violence?’: Cancer Surgery 121 Conclusion: ‘Death Is Only Their Desire’ 154 Notes 159 Bibliography 193 Index 217 v List of Illustrations 6.1 Lorenzo Lippi, Saint Agatha , 1638–44, oil on canvas, 75.7 × 64.1 cm (29 13/16 × 25 1/4 in.). Courtesy of Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, The Suida-Manning Collection, 1999 (369.1999). Photo credit: Rick Hall 122 6.2 Sebastiano del Piombo, The Martyrdom of Saint Agatha (1520). Courtesy of Polo Museale, Firenze, the Vittoria della Rovere collection 123 6.3 Pierre Dionis, A Course of Chirurgical Operations, Demonstrated in the Royal Garden at Paris (p. 247), 1710. Copyright of the University of Manchester 135 6.4 Johannes Scultetus, ‘Breast cancer operation’, from Het vermeerderde wapenhuis der heel-musters , 1748. Courtesy of Wellcome Library, London 136 6.5 The Agnew Clinic . Artist/maker unknown, After Thomas Eakins. Photogravure, c. 1889. Image: 7 7/8 × 11 in. (20.0 × 27.9 cm). Courtesy of Philadelphia Museum of Art: Gift of Samuel B. Sturgis, 1973 149 vi Acknowledgements The unstinting support and wisdom of Sarah Toulalan and Andrew McRae has seen me through the PhD thesis and the wilds of early career research in which this book was constructed, and I am immeasurably grateful. Others who have offered invaluable advice and encourage- ment include Philip Schwyzer, Sujata Iyengar, Jennifer Evans, Sally Templeman, Margaret Healy, Karen Edwards and Lesel Dawson. This work was supported by the Wellcome Trust [093090] and would not have been possible without their generosity. Material related to this book has been printed in Social History of Medicine and Disability, Health and Happiness in the Shakespearean Body, and I would like to thank the reviewers and editors of those texts for their helpful comments and suggestions. I am also grateful to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Blanton Museum of Art, the Museo polo Firenze, the Wellcome Library and Manchester University John Rylands Library for permission to reproduce images from their collections. Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends for their support through good and stressful times. Emma, Matthew and Sam provided, in no particular order, late-night proofreading, an ancient historian’s perspective, tea, sympathy and motivational songs. Thank you. vii Referencing Conventions ‘ū’ characters have been resolved to ‘un’ and y e and y t contrac- tions expanded to ‘the’ and ‘that’. ‘V’ and ‘u’ characters have been modernised. Original spellings and punctuation are maintained, with the exception of ‘hee’, ‘shee’ and ‘itt’ (now ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘it’) and unnecessary spaces (for instance, before ‘;’ and ‘:’), which have been removed. Long titles have been curtailed. Where a primary text does not contain page numbers, signature marks are given. All references to Shakespeare are taken from William Shakespeare, The Complete Works (Second Edition), ed. Stanley Wells, Gary Taylor, John Jowett and William Montgomery (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). Unless otherwise stated, all references to the Bible refer to the Authorized King James Version (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). For plays, act and scene numbers are given in-text; line numbers are given for longer poems, but not for sonnets and short verse. viii OPEN Introduction On an unknown date in the mid-seventeenth century, Mrs Townsend, of Alverston in Gloucestershire, steeled herself for a dangerous but potentially life-saving operation. Mrs Townsend had breast cancer, and she was to have her breast ‘taken off’ by two surgeons, Mr Linch and Mr Clark. Watching the operation was Reverend John Ward, vicar of Stratford-upon-Avon. He recorded the events in his diary: They had their needles and waxt thread ready, but never ust them; and allso their cauterizing irons, but they used them not: she lost not above [six ounces] of blood in all. Dr. Needham coming too late, staid next day to see it opened. He said it was a melliceris, and not a perfect cancer; but it would have been one quickly. There came out a gush of a great quantitie of waterish substance, as much as would fill a flaggon; when they had done, they cutt off, one one bitt, another another, and putt a glass of wine in and some lint, and so let it alone till the next day; then they opend it again, and injected myrrhe, aloes, and such things as resisted putrefaction, and so bound it upp againe. Every time they dresst it, they cutt off something of the cancer that was left behind; the chyrurgions were for applying a caustick, but Dr.
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