May 2023
The Queen-like Closet, Or, Rich Cabinet was a cookery book published in 1670 by the English writer on household management, Hannah Woolley[a] (1622 – c.1675).
Hannah Woolley(1622 – c.1675) was an English writer who published early books on household management and cookery. She was probably the first person to earn a living doing this.
Hannah Woolley offered guidance on a wide variety of topics in the domestic sphere, including recipes for health and beauty, as well as marriage and relationship tips. In the article The medicinal recipes of Hannah Woolley: everyday practice and female authority in seventeenth-century England Marina Juliana de Oliveira Soares, Professor of Education in the Humanities at Faculdade SESI-São Paulo, describes the seventeenth-century English woman writer’s interest in medical care and the reasons that led her to publish texts on this topic.
The article investigates the principles that governed the preparation of these recipes, Woolley’s intentions in writing on this topic, and the way in which academic medicine was translated and practiced by women routinely during this period. Marina also explores the medicinal recipes and advice directed toward women in order to assess the role they played in everyday healing and what these female functions can tell us about the medicine which was popular in England during the second half of the seventeenth century.
According to the article, a close reading of the medicinal recipes suggests not only that routine ingredients in cooking were used but that common treatments in Hippocratic and Galenic theory were recommended. Humor, for example, is mentioned in a recipe for vinegar syrup. The importance of female protagonism is notable in the dissemination of knowledge as well as in its practical implementation.
How to cite this article:
Soares, M. J. de O.. (2023). As receitas médicas de Hannah Woolley: prática cotidiana e autoridade feminina na Inglaterra do século XVII. História, Ciências, Saúde-manguinhos, 30, e2023007. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0104-59702023000100007
Read more about Women and the dissemination of knowledge in HCS-Manguinhos:
Women made visible: the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Portugal This work in progress looks at the Institute’s scientific journal to identify the participation of women in tropical medicine between 1943 and 1966.
Gender, women and science February, 11 International Day of Women and Girls in Science. This special dossier of HCS-Manguinhos published in 2008 is entirely dedicated to gender, women and science.
Women involved in Brazil’s health policy on leprosy Francieli Lunelli Santos and José Augusto Leandro examine the family profiles of women holding key decision-making positions in health policy concerning leprosy from the mid-1920s to the late 1940s.
Una perspectiva feminista de la historia de la medicina – Entrevista con la investigadora Teresa Ortiz-Gómez sobre los aportes del feminismo a la historia de la medicina.
