Early Modern Ireland and the World of Medicine: Social Histories of Medicine

This collection seeks to offer new and important insights into medicine in early modern Ireland. It situates Irish medicine in relation to long-term social and cultural change on the island, as well as within wider international contexts with Britain, Europe and the Atlantic. Uniquely, it offers substantial attention to the years before 1750, a period which has been relatively neglected in studies of Irish medicine.

The essays engage with important aspects of the historiography of medicine in the twenty-first century. Among the key topics examined are Gaelic medicine, warfare, the impact of new medical ideas, migration, patterns of disease, midwifery and childbirth, book collecting, natural history, and urban medicine. A common thread running throughout the collection is the focus on medical practitioners and the book accordingly enables significant new understanding of the character of medical practice in early modern Ireland; who practised medicine, and where? How did they deal with war, disease and other challenges? How was their work shaped by wider trends in the medicine of the period? What roles did practitioners play in wider learned society?

Early Modern Ireland and the world of medicine brings together an exciting selection of established scholars and early career historians. The book will be of interest to academics and students of the history of early modern medicine and will be essential reading for historians of Ireland.