The Great Plague Scare of 1720: Disaster and Diplomacy in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World by Cindy Ermus (review)

Abstract

alleviated worms, sitting on a roasted onion healed hemorrhoids. Ranelagh also exchanged medicinal treatments with foreigners and sent these to Hartlib and, through her friendship with Elizabeth Grey, Countess of Kent, helped identify the authoritative version of common remedies in wide circulation. She also compiled her own recipe books, and it looks like she had remedies based on intricate chemical procedures—limbecks and stills, distillation and calcification, chemical compounds and minerals—which were not sent to Hartlib. She kept the more complicated remedies private because widespread dissemination of them could do harm than good. Ranelagh sent medication to family and friends, for example, hartshorn to rouse Lady Clarendon, and a potion to treat William Penn’s sick son. She was always eager to hear if a remedy worked. She collaborated with her brother on many medical issues, sharing diagnostic information, agreeing on remedies for treatment, and borrowing ingredients. Both were critical of the physicians’ unwillingness to try new remedies. Ranelagh, a firm believer in experience, was particularly incensed by book learning only and by ineffectual doctors who did nothing to help. This biography is part of a growing trend in the cultural history of science to emphasize the role of personal identities and life histories. Ranelagh’s interest in theology and politics alongside her practice of chemistry and medicine are woven together. The chronological, interwoven approach rather than a more thematic analysis of the material does inhibit discerning her actual contribution. DiMeo does an admirable job of uncovering the intellectual pursuits of one of the most admired women of the seventeenth century. Even so, we are often not sure of her actual role, as the author concedes: Boyle’s medical works “probably incorporate more contributions from Lady Ranelagh than we will ever be able to confirm with certainty” (p. 184).