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Social History of Medicine 2003 16(3):327-342; doi:10.1093/shm/16.3.327
© 2003 by Society for the Social History of Medicine
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Society for the Social History of Medicine Student Millennium Prize Essay

Reassessing the Role of the Family: Women's Medical Care in Eighteenth-century England

Lisa W. Smith

Department of History, University of Saskatchewan, 9 Campus Drive, Saskatoon, SK S7N 5A5, Canada. E-mail: lisa.smith{at}usask.ca

The medical relationship is not just about doctors and patients. Instead, a three-way medical relationship existed in eighteenth-century England, amongst patients, their doctors, and patients' families. Medical consultation letters addressed to the London physician, Sir Hans Sloane, from the 1690s to the 1730s, reveal the inner workings of this relationship. Not only did women's families provide medical care, but they also helped to shape women's choices about medical matters. These medical issues, moreover, sometimes became the focus of family disputes: husbands might not want to pay for an expensive medical treatment, while parents might dislike the way their daughters were treated by their sons-in-law. A physician, in turn, could also become an important player in family politics, either explaining one side to the other or actively providing support to the patient. Medical choices entailed a complex process of decision-making that included the patient's family, as well as the woman and her doctor.

Keywords: patients, doctors, families, Sir Hans Sloane, consultation letters, mothers, husbands, gender, patriarchy, early modern


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