DOCTORAL THESIS The Role of Domestic Knowledge in an Era of Professionalisation: Eighteenth-Century Manuscript Medical Recipe Collections Osborn , Sally Ann Award date: 2016 General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 01. Oct. 2021 The Role of Domestic Knowledge in an Era of Professionalisation: Eighteenth-Century Manuscript Medical Recipe Collections by Sally Ann Osborn BA, MA A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of PhD Department of Humanities University of Roehampton 2015 2 3 Abstract Manuscript recipe books come in all shapes and sizes and run from tens to hundreds of pages. Those from the eighteenth century are not exclusively culinary, also incorporating medical, veterinary and household recipes. Surviving examples are almost all from genteel or elite households, the people who had time and resources to create them, and are preserved in local archives or dedicated collections. This thesis examines the medical recipes in particular and considers their role at a time when alternatives to domestic healthcare were proliferating: increasing numbers of physicians and surgeons, a growth in apothecaries’ shops, commercial offerings such as proprietary medicines and a variety of irregular practitioners. Advice and remedies in print were also widely available in books, periodicals and newspapers. This is the largest study of eighteenth-century manuscript medical recipes yet undertaken, encompassing 241 collections and a total of 19,134 recipes. It begins by considering the collections themselves as material objects, rather than merely text, which no other major study in this area has done. The range of recipes and ailments are assessed against prevalent illnesses and causes of death, and variations in recipe types identified regionally and temporally. Detailed case studies of coughs and colds, gout, hydrophobia, diet drinks and Daffy’s Elixir illustrate the variety of ingredients and methods, as well as regimens for health and differences by gender and age. Examination of compilers and contributors of recipes demonstrates that both women and men were involved in this practice. Recipe exchange is delineated as a form of social currency requiring trust and reciprocity, and case studies show how knowledge circulated through three forms of network: familial, sociable and 4 political. Finally, a major contribution of this thesis is that it identifies manuscript medical recipe collections as fulfilling four important functions for their compilers: oeconomic, symbolic, personalised and instrumental. 5 Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................... 3 List of Tables ...................................................................................................................... 8 List of Figures ..................................................................................................................... 9 Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................... 12 A note on transcription practice ........................................................................................ 13 Abbreviations .................................................................................................................... 14 1: Methodology and Context ............................................................................................ 15 Previous research ........................................................................................................ 16 Methodology of this research ...................................................................................... 24 The eighteenth-century context for domestic medicine .............................................. 30 Medical thinking ...................................................................................................... 30 Professionalisation ................................................................................................... 41 Commercialisation ................................................................................................... 48 The domestic role .................................................................................................... 57 2: The Recipe Collections ................................................................................................. 67 Creating a collection ................................................................................................... 68 Organising the collection ............................................................................................ 83 Non-medical recipes ................................................................................................. 104 Other content ............................................................................................................. 108 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 120 3: The Recipes I – Format and Variety ........................................................................... 122 What is a recipe? ....................................................................................................... 122 Categorising recipes .................................................................................................. 131 Comparisons with other research .............................................................................. 147 6 Comparison across different regions ........................................................................ 152 Comparison across the century ................................................................................. 156 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 164 4: The Recipes II – Selected Conditions ......................................................................... 167 Coughs and colds ...................................................................................................... 168 Gout........................................................................................................................... 180 Diet drinks ................................................................................................................. 194 Bite of a mad dog ...................................................................................................... 210 Daffy’s Elixir ............................................................................................................ 228 Differences by sex and age ....................................................................................... 237 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 251 5: Compilers and Contributors ........................................................................................ 255 Writer, author, owner or compiler? ........................................................................... 255 Compilers .................................................................................................................. 260 The Filmer brothers ................................................................................................... 267 Contributors .............................................................................................................. 272 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 281 6: Recipes as Social Currency ......................................................................................... 283 Social capital ............................................................................................................. 283 The social life of recipes ........................................................................................... 294 A familial network: Lady Baillie, Lady Murray and Lady Stanhope .................... 295 A sociable network: Caroline Powys and friends .................................................. 300 A political network: Aristocratic connections ....................................................... 311 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 315 7: The Role of Domestic Medical Knowledge ............................................................... 317 Oeconomic ................................................................................................................ 320 7 Symbolic ..................................................................................................................