Case 6234

Mary Watson, 17 years. Wednesday 24 October 1599, 11.00 am. Diz [the nature of the disease].
[Chart.]
[Astrology.]
Pain in the head ready to vomit often & pain & fullness of her stomach and a pain in the bottom of the belly like stitches and she is with child. And it will perish or she will die thereof for it seems that physic will kill her.
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Case 18510

Isabel Foster of Densanger, 18 years. Saturday 8 January 1603, 10.15 am.
[In chart, added later] Proved with child & died in child bed & her child also.
Menses obstructed this quarter of a year. A pulling about her heart. Faint that she cannot go. Looks very white and pale. Cannot take her rest. So full of pains. Many times great pain of her head. Also vomits.
[Added later:] Took much physic to destroy the fruit of her womb. Delivered of a very poor child dead.
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Case 10145

Utrum habebit filios [whether she will have any children]. Mrs Smith of Parsnam, 18 years. Married half a month. For the wind colic. Monday 10 March 1600, 3.30 pm. No child whether [leaves off].
[In chart] Because she has no children.
Whether she shall have children. Stomach & heart. Has a gnashing in her left side as if her liver did grow to her side. Troubled also with a wind colic. Ready to swoon as one that has the green sickness. 2s. Will take no physic.
[Treatment information.]
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Case 73601

Anne Smyth of Kempson, 65 years. Friday 6 January, 1631, 11.00 am. Vide [see] Thursday 29 December, 1631.
[Chart.]
The physic that she had before did not work with her. In a fit of sickness there did (to her thinking) a woman appear & spoke to her & when she had made her an answer there came a bee from her & she made such a great noise as if the chamber had been full of bees. & came out of her mouth & shrieked at her face but she put it by yet it continued a great while. When she spoke to her she vanished away & the bee & so the noise ceased.
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Case 60271

Elizabeth Hayford of Loughton in Leicestershire, 54 years. Thursday 21 April 1625, 2.15 pm. Complains of her wits. Sometimes furious & tempted to make herself away & to drown herself in wells. Uses idle speeches & will [breaks off].
[Left margin] Had vomits & purges.
Head ill & eyes bad & dim. Had a thing to drink & to put about her neck. Cannot be saved, the devil so tells her as she says. Look where the devil stands. Will weep much. A great itch. [Treatment information.]
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Case 47095

Joan Ekins of Raunce, 25 years. Friday 17 July 1618, 9.30 am.
[Left] Joan Ekins of Raunce, 26 years. Friday 17 July 1618, 9.30 am.
The 9 of July was taken suddenly taken & began to speak idlly & has done so ever since, talking of the devil & says that she has given away her soul to the devil & says he has a lease of her life. Is grown very furious. Urine good. Full of slimy residue. Child was christened. Her boy was christened on Candlemas day last was twelvemonth. [Treatment information.] This wrought exceedingly with her & made her very sick. Ceph[alic vein] et Saph[enous vein] & pulls down any thing upon her.
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Case 12907

Catherine Wels of Buckingam, 23 years. Thursday 20 December, 1599, 9.30 am. Vexed as she says with a spirit & dares not to ride lest seeing the water she should fall into it. Sent unto me. Troubled this 3 years. Married & has a child a year old.
[In chart] Haunted, tempted to kill herself or her child.
Worse for that her husband makes small reckoning of her. Asks whether it be not good to let her blood because she is full of blood. [Astrology.] Goes ad secessum bene [goes to stool well]. She thinks some evil spirit to be within. Tempted either to kill her self or her child & therefore when she sees a knife she flings it away. Cannot abide to take any potion to drink because it had once made her mad. But will eat anything.
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Case 75152

Mary Harding of Shiddlington, 15 years. Monday 23 July 1632, 8.30 am. Married at Christmas last. Pained in her heart & stomach. Has little or no appetite to her meat. Cannot sleep. Ill 3 weeks. Stands as one in a trance.
[In chart] Convulsive fits. Mother.
In love with a young man & her friends against. Urine indifferent. 3 weeks sick. Yet married against her will. [Treatment information.] Has used all yet not the better.
[Treatment information.]
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Case 68820

Lady Elizabeth Walter, 48 years. December last the 8 being Thursday about nine at night but came to me Tuesday 23 June 1629, 3.00 pm. Cold in her stomach mouth & lips. [Right] Spleen & mother & veneficium [witchcraft].
[Chart.]
[Left of chart] A bad husband that did not regard her.
[Right of chart] Cowslip rosemary flowers mithridate oil of ambers to prevent the palsy.
A windy head & noise. A spice of the mother & spleen.
[Over page] This woman had a violent purge in winter & snowy weather which wrought 20 times in a day & night that it could hardly be stayed. & stopping the looseness with hot cloths never had them since. Which was about 2 years since. Took saffron 1d & it set her in a flower [menstruation]. Then drank a pint of barley water & that made her extreme cold in stomach & lips. Yet digests well. [Astrology.]
[Over page] The Lady Walter beyond London 40 miles came to me for my counsel. [Treatment information.]
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Cases 58589, 58589

Case 58588
Elizabeth Lawrence of Luton Hoe 20 years. Tuesday 1 June 1624, 3.30 pm.
[In chart] Mad with love & melancholy & full of prate. Long ere she mended.
Apt to sigh.
1. was let blood arm & foot
2. had a vomit
Has had them but 4 times. The middle of her head ill & cannot sleep. Head & heart ill. Apt to talk of religion. Had the green sickness but now had them not this twelvemonth since last harvest. Always sickly. Despairs of gods mercy. [Treatment information.]
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Case 58589
Elizabeth Lawrence was sent Monday 24 May 1624, 5.45 am. Tempted by Satan fell into a pond & likely to be drowned but was safely delivered very godly & religious & of a good mind and faith.
[Chart.]
Full of sad heavy melancholy thoughts. Back & head eyes run with water. Trembles and quivers.
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Case 54392

Mrs Esther Conquest, 21 years. This last 29 of May being Friday about 8 in the morning, but came to me Thursday 6 June 1622, 1pm.
[In chart] Melancholia cum delyrio. Ridet post flet idque saepius [melancholy with delirium. She laughs after she weeps, and this often].
Could not speak but now can again. Voluit maritum Salowe, quem parentes noluerunt [wanted Salowe for a husband, whom her parents did not want]. Will take no more clysters nor inward physic. But outward only. Has a ravenous stomach. A purging diet for mother & herself.
[Treatment information.]
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Case 49350

Elisabeth Hull of Newport Rob Anslowe’s daughter, 30 years. Wednesday 28 July 1619, 9.15 am.
[Chart.]
Urine very thin otherwise good. Very weak & sick in London has taken much physic & is very faint & weak. Green sickness. Married to this man better than a year no child by this man. Had 3 by the other & all died before they came to be christened.
Soles of her feet burn exceedingly.
[Treatment information.]
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Case 49717

Mrs Hull of Newport who did dwell at London but came down to recover her health, 36 years. Saturday 18 September 1619. Had 4 children by her first husband & now married 2 years to one Mr Hull. 2 years & a half & has had no child.
[Chart.]
Had a vomit at London & since never well. Urine like well water. Troubled with sore stitches on her right side & chest as a thing arising like a live thing. Her feet did burn. Had of me an electuary which did her no good. Has a great dryness is exceedingly hot & dry in her fit & goes away with a cold sweat. Is much troubled with the mother. Had not her sickness kindly these 2 years since her husband died. Is very faint & short winded & is led betwixt 2 people supporting her.
[Treatment information.]
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Case 61852

William & Robert Lewis supposed to be hurt by bad tongues. 24 March 1626, 6.50 pm. Will 15, Robert 12 years.
[In chart] Betwitched.
Roberts water good but has a great patch of white gravel. They be strangely handled of all parts of their bodies & cry out of the witches hand & the use of their senses & wits taken away. They be haunted. The youngest Mr Hamell mended God be thanked. [Astrology.] Will[iam], water more high coloured with a ground. Muddish red grounds.
[Left margin] The children be well out of their fits.
They had vomits & lozenges were let blood. One mended but two elder are worse than before. 1 tab. Sigil Jupiter a little before 8 in the morning. Water of hypericum. Mugwort water.
[Right of page] Will Lewis of Henley of the Temps 15 years. Ill as before or rath[er] worse.
Their speeches in ther fits are all of witch[es]. They say in their fits that they are possessed. They do adjure th[e] witches to come out of them. Their senses are gone & their fits con[tinue?] one hour mo[re] or less & when they are out of their fit they complain of all[in binding]. White gravel of all parts of their bod[ies].
[Over page] Will Lewis had
1. tab 3. d.
2. A purge. Antimony 9 grains. Diagr. 12. Garlic. Jeralog each 4 grains.
3. Water of hypericum or mugwort 3 ounces. Sigil Jupiter. 2 scruples of coral.
The like for Robert Lewis.
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Case 74758

Mrs Anne Bardall of Daventry born September 13 1596, 1.30pm. But sent to me Saturday 2 June 1632, 1.20 pm.
The more physic the more her pain. Extreme pain in her head. A giddiness rising out of her stomach to her head holding it for a year & a half & vomited much after her fit of dizziness. Since Easter her giddiness has left her & now has 6 or 8 passionate fits. In her head. Extremity of pain makes her mopish & senseless for a day & a half when she sweats a little after chill & cold. Apt to sleep.
[Chart.]
[Right column] Was let blood in the arm & also by leeches & since the worse. Never had child. Married 4 years & a widow 6 years then married 5 years yet no child. Has very few & seldom.
[Treatment information, including sigil of Jupiter with a silk string to wear about 11.]
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Case 52206

Old Mr Edwards, his daughter in law. For his oldest dead son’s daughter [he means wife] at Henlowe in Bedfordshire, 34 years. Wednesday 28 March 1621, 7.45am. A widow much troubled in her hearing. [Left] A good urine but much whites.
[In chart] Hearing bad.
Unwilling to take physic. [Left column, astrology.]
Since Saturday her first fit took her with a great wind in her stomach or like the mother. A windy stomach like the mother. She swells & heaves upwards that 3 folks cannot hold her down. This fit continued 3 hours & rested. Then the same night about eleven taken again with another fit but it held her not so long. On Monday the like fit but not as vehement as the first. But yesterday being Tuesday about eleven in the forenoon as vehement a fit as 4 women could not hold her down & made her shake as a woman bewitched.
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Case 46567

Mrs Cook of Stachdon. 40 years. Wednesday 6 May 1618, 11.00 am.
Aguish water. Has as it were an ague as cake on the left side. Head ill & very faint. Last week took her purge & wrought plentifully & used her ointment. Has them not well. Stomach clogged with the stoppage. Full of wind in her left side with an ague cake has also a lump like a wedge in the bottom of her belly ascending upward. A very windiness of the spleen. Mother suspected. All full of wheals.
[Treatment information.]
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Case 53754

Ralph Winterton, fellow of King’s College. Sunday 24 March 1622, 5.20 pm. A rare young man for learning, studiousness & strictness of life. Mopish, melancholic, fell ill by overmuch study & that a knight entraining him to ride to his home & even promising him 30l per annum put him no man can yet learn the cause after a quarter of a year. His father sent for him. 23 years August 26, 3.30 pm.
[In chart] Mopish. Went to drown himself. Miraculously preserved.
He assayed to drown himself the Friday sennet before Candlemas day last but was miraculously preserved. Deep melancholy. Has taken much physic. Never the better.
Sometimes he calls upon God & trusts in Christ’s mercy, other times says that he is born the child of perdition.
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Case 79149

Sara Major of Blaxeley 18 years. Thursday 7 August 1634, 1.30 pm.
[Chart.]
She was born 1 March 1616 at 2 of clock in the morning being Thursday. Vide Mrs Elisabeth Jennyns. Burns much. Complains of a pain in her sides & back. Urine good. Body costive. Was first taken making of hay & lying against a haycock where she felt something to prick her back & again the next day the like. Sometimes one bone in her back came forth & would slip in again & sometime another, at other a third joint & slip in & out again. Took purgations of one Mr Lapworths & Dove & Rawlins of Daventry, an Apothecary, which wrought 10 days together & she is very weak after it. Was at Bath yet grows worse & worse. Is very weak. Has sweating fits & cold fits. Has of late suspected some ill body that has bewitched her. Elisabeth Wickins & Em Taylor her daughter suspected. She is gone into Essex. She came oftentimes to houses.
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Case 16760

John Spencer Sir Robartes Spencers servant. Tuesday 30 March 1602, 9.00 am. Complains of his left side & spleen & swelling of his leg. Asks a remedy for Alice Faulkner, 23 years, troubled with the green sickness. Has taken many vomits but none would work with her. Craves a vomit. Sick in the stomach. Asks whether Alice Faulkner loves the man or not.[In chart] Much grief & discontentment.
[Treatment information.]
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Case 50453

Mrs Margaret Franklin of Bonehurst, 24 years. Wednesday 29 March 1620, 10.40 am. Worst fasting. Head full & dizzy. Windy. A cold stomach. Hot liver. Full of melancholy grief since her father’s death. Face flushing hot & breaking out. Unmarried. Cold feet hot head.
[Chart.]
[Bottom left of chart] A thick and muddy water.
[Astrology.]
Has taken much physic, purges, pills. Let blood little the better.
[Treatment information.] A purging diet drink for melancholy. The like for Elizabeth Bosse 26 years melancholy.
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Case 46866

Mr John Spencer of Offley. Monday 15 June 1618, 12.40 pm. For gonorrhea. Had purging pills for his head & rheume of his nose which brought a dandruff on his head. A great eater of hair. [Inserted between lines] Denot curam hanc esse difficilem [indicates this cure to be difficult]. Loath to take inward medicine for his flux least it should increase it.
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Case 28690

William Stoe of the parish of Parsnam, 43 years. Thursday 18 April 1605, 9.25 am. Head feet & toes. Short-winded.
[In chart] Fears morbus gallicus.
Looks as if he had the jaundice. Faint at his stomach. Much grief from time to time. Had a wife long sick who died after much physic. Lost much cattle which died. Had the plague in his house. 2 child died. Himself had it with heavings under his throat with red spots in his hands & legs. Never well since.
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Case 36293

Arthur Smith of Little Houghton, 37 years. Friday 28 July 1609, 7.00 am. A great pain in the left side of his head takes him ever after sleep. Has had it 10 weeks. Took pills which wrought not. Let blood in the liver vein of the right arm and advised to make an issue in his neck. Asks whether infected with morbus gallicus.
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Case 11790

Joan Nelson of Mowlsoe, 52 years. Friday 10 November 1598, 8.35 am. Having taken a smay because her husband on a time beating her maid for denying of that which her husband knew to the contrary, she bearing of the blows when her husband struck her. It fortuned within a while after the servant died & the mother of that child said she would never live until she had hanged him for killing of her daughter. Since which time she ever vomits black soot every day for this twelve months. 14 years ago or thereabout her servant beaten died. She loses of her beasts & kines fat & good on a sudden since yesterday yea & sometimes she can make no butter. No physic will go downward but upward all, & that as much without physic as with it.
[In chart] Once in a week to ground. Burnt in body. Excrement hard & little, like sheep trittles. She fears her liver is wasted.
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Case 79335

Mrs Joan Prescott of the Priory in Kimbolton parish, 65 years. Sunday 24 May 1635, 12.45 pm.
[Chart.]
Suspects herself to be under an ill tongue. Without any just cause given on her part. Has a suspicion of two persons viz of one Ann Hart & widow Wardbois of Kimbolton parish in the county of Huntington. But most especially of the said Ann Hart being a woman of a bad conversation in reviling, cursing, swearing & so noted by her neighbours for that divers of her neighbours have suspected her to be the only occasion of the loss of their several goods as horses, cows, calfs, pigs & hens, ducks.
She is very much tormented in her body both inwardly in her bowels by pricking & pulling & gnawing & pricking at her heart & sometimes outwardly all over her body sometimes in her head & then in her eyes, shoulders, arms, hands, thighs, knees, legs & no place free & sometimes reasonable well & then comes again & thus she has been this 10 weeks. Has taken much physic & wrought reasonable well with her. But yet she continues as ill as ever. Sleeps indifferent well now often yet heretofore could not sleep well. Is troubled many times taken with a rising up to her thro[at] even ready to stop her. Urine very good. Body very costive. Much troubled with wind.
[Treatment information.]
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