Medical Intro

In Sickness & In Health:
Medicine in the Old Colony 1620–1920

by Jane L. Port, Curator
Pilgrim Society & Pilgrim Hall Museum

An exhibition at Pilgrim Hall Museum

sponsored by

June 2004 - April 2005

The history of medicine in Plymouth can be traced through the lives of its physicians. Plymouth's first healer was Mayflower passenger Samuel Fuller.

Samuel Fuller's work was informed by the ancient theory advocating the balance of bodily fluids. The notion of the four humours, or fluids, that permeate the body and influence an individual’s health and temperament originated with Hippocrates (ca. 460–377 BCE) and was developed by Galen (131–201 CE). It remained an important part of medical practice for more than 1000 years.

Each humour, formed in a specific organ of the body, was associated with a set of paired qualities—“warm and moist” with blood, for example. In addition, each corresponded with a particular element, was connected with a season, and had a corresponding element.

Humour	Season	Element	Organ	Qualities	Temperament
Blood	Spring	Air	Liver	Warm & moist	Sanguine - passionate, confident, optimistic
Phlegm	Winter	Water	Brain & lungs	Cold & moist	Phlegmatic - calm, unemotional
Yellow bile	Summer	Fire	Gall bladder	Warm & dry	Choleric - easily angered, bad tempered
Black bile	Autumn	Earth	Spleen	Cold & dry	Melancholic - depressed, sad, gloomy

The proportions of each fluid might vary in healthy individuals, affecting their temperament. A severe imbalance in those proportions was seen as the cause of disease or illness. Such an imbalance might result from heat, cold, foul air, digestive troubles, stress, shock. Depending on which fluid exceeded “normal” levels, either bloodletting, emetics and/or purges might be ordered.

Lancets were used to open veins - and it was important to understand the difference between veins and arteries! Bleeding bowls marked with various volume levels were held under the incision to track the progress of procedure. Alternatively, a leech, which will consume four times its own weight in blood, could be placed on the skin. (Used for thousands of years to reduce blood pressure and cleanse the blood, the worm releases a chemical that prevents clotting of the blood while it sucks.)

During the 17^th century, distinctions were drawn between university-educated physicians who saw themselves as intellectuals, the surgeons who carried out the bloody manual labor of medicine, and the apothecaries who kept stores of ingredients and prepared medicines of all kinds (Zimmer, 19). Another category included men who attended medical lectures as a part of their general education. London’s great architect, Christopher Wren, studied medicine and his illustrations for Thomas Willis’ 1664 landmark study, The Anatomy of the Brain and Nerves, were so accurate, they were reproduced in the 20^th century (Zimmer, 186-187).

In the countryside, and in the colonies, the scarcity of practitioners often meant that one person took on all three roles. Though a surgeon by occupation, Mayflower passenger Samuel Fuller (1580-1633) would have understood Galen’s theories of purging and bloodletting to balance bodily fluids, and how herbs and other ingredients were combined to make pills, potions and tonics. Indeed, as Deacon of the Plymouth church, it was his responsibility to look after the health and well-being of the members. (Thanks to Jim Baker for this insight into the Deacon’s role.)

	Fuller had lived for over a decade in Leiden, an important medical center, and may have attended lectures during that time (O’Connor, p.118-119). At his death, Fuller’s household inventory included about 30 books, some of them “physicks books” and “a surgions chest with the things belonging to it” and “2 brasse morters and pestles.”
Mortar & Pestle, lignum vitae, about 1650-1700, with a history of ownership in the Alden family. Museum purchase, 1956. (PHM 1156)

Trained doctors remained a rarity in 17^th century New England. When Francis Lebaron (1668–1704), ship’s surgeon on a French privateer, found himself shipwrecked on the coast of the Old Colony, he was taken prisoner. His surgical skills proved more important than his French background, however, and soon won him a reprieve. He remained, married, and founded a family that included a number of prominent medical men.