| This thesis explores medicine as presented in Massachusetts almanacs. Almanacs were the most widely distributed print medium in that province, a place where literacy was common, but reading often narrow. Almanac makers wrote on medicine in the context of an eclectic, common medical world. Time-honored concepts of disease and treatment mingled with newer notions. Different kinds of practitioners freely operated, with little to define a medical elite.;The most important connection between the almanacs and this medical world was through a traditional system of regimen, based on seasonal changes and on natural astrology. Dr. Nathaniel Ames the elder (1708--1764), in the most popular of these almanacs, sought to unite learned medicine and astrology into a system for predicting and dealing with illness.;Ames also showed his links to learned medicine in efforts to "define" a medical profession when there was none. He attacked "ignorant nurses" and the female healing tradition they represented. He told doctors to quit imitating quacks. He sought to persuade readers that they needed the advice of learned doctors in daily regimen.;Ames's linking of traditional seasonal and astrological lore with philosophical medicine did not convince everyone. A number of competitors ridiculed such beliefs and, occasionally, Ames himself. They, however, found it necessary to maintain a connection with the common medical world. They did this in different ways, some by supporting domestic medicine, some by emphasizing wonders and prodigies, and some by keeping astrological features in their almanacs despite the fact that they ridiculed the practice. In the end, Ames's more astrological almanac outlasted these competitors in Massachusetts.;This study has two main implications. First, Ames's efforts to define his profession occurred before there was much in the way of professional comradeship or medical institutions. The process of differentiating the doctors from other healers began with rhetoric alone. Second, if astrology, particularly natural astrology, was thrust to the shadows by certain learned authors, it had center stage in the almanacs. Moreover, almanac makers like Nathaniel Ames did not present astrologically based medicine as an alternative to learned medicine, but as a part of it. |
