Tag Archives: home medicine

Home Medicine in Jane Austen’s Day

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William Buchan’s book Domestic medicine or the family physician was the backbone of home medicine in Jane Austen’s day. During Jane Austen’s day, the practice of medicine as we know it today was still in its infancy. Formally trained doctors were unavailable to many either because of cost or distance. Consequently many of the curative arts were practiced at home. William Buchan’s book Domestic medicine or the family physician. Buchan’s Early Life William Buchan was … Continue reading →

Regency Medicine: Betwixt and Between

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I’d like to welcome Kyra Kramer today as she shares a fascinating article on Regency Medicine and how it was more medieval than modern. There would be significant changes in health care in the later decades of the 1800s, with the emergence of germ theory producing biomedicine as we would recognize it by the Edwardian age. The Regency, however, was in some ways the last gasp of medieval medicine – a Tudor merchant would be more … Continue reading →

Mistress of the manor: Lady of leisure or Full time working mom?

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What did Jane Austen’s ladies do all day? Were they ladies of leisure or full time working women? Period dramas have left many of us with the notion that ladies of the landed gentry in the Regency era had little to do but dress in lovely gowns, embroider and gossip.  Reality could not be farther from this image. In general, both master and mistress of the manor did a great deal of work around the estate, … Continue reading →