Witches, Midwives, and

Nurses
HSS2121 Week 5, October 5, 2017
KA Hogan RN PhD
 Women have always been healers
Unlicensed
Travelled
Passed on experience
Wise women or witches
 Defeated by anatomy
Nurse-like
Menstruation
Men doctrines and rituals
Women humane and empathetic
Political struggle
Jacqueline Felicie
1322

Jacqueline Felicie was a female unlicensed medical healer in France during

the fourteenth century. The fourteenth century was the beginning of a time
period full of persecution of female healers and physicians.
Felicies accusers claim that she visited several patients, examined them,
and claimed to cure them, despite being warned against practicing without
a license.
Along with the Medical Faculty, the Archbishop also expressed concerns
that practicing without a license could result in the mortal sin of murder,
which was punishable by excommunication.
For this reason, her accusers claimed that preventing her from practicing
was in the interest of her soul. Felicies defense brought forth six witnesses
that all attested to her experience and skill in curing them, even after many
received unsuccessful treatment from well-known licensed physicians.
Witches in 1600s
Women who were deemed to be witches
were hunted down and prosecuted.
Most women prosecuted were innocent of
any crime. They were social misfits who
were not married or wise women who
were knowledgeable about medicinal plants
and treatments for illness.
These women were wise, smart and
intelligent women. They were able to
cure people who were sick, they were able
to understand science on a level that most
were incapable of. Because they could do
what many others didnt understand, they
were stigmatized with being a witch.
 Background Info
Even though witchcraft as such was
practiced mainly by experienced old
women, men also practiced it.
Witches were the mediators between the
human beings and the mysterious super
powers such as spirits and angels
The witches prayed to the higher powers
or the spirits for help and guidance in
resolving the problem by performing
certain rituals and the whole process was
called witchcraft.
 Witchcraft, an earth based religion, was
practiced in almost all the societies and
cultures across the world according to local
beliefs and traditions.
It dates 40,000 years back to Paleolithic
period, proved by the discovery of cave
paintings which are estimated to be 30,000
years old.
The word Witchcraft has been derived from
the word Wicca which means the wise one.
 Witchcraft has been seen as a magical
phenomenon, a pagan worship or religion,
sorcery, and others, at different periods in
Witchcraft History.
People suspected as witches were usually
burned at stakes, and those pleading their
innocence were either stoned to death or
even sometimes thrown in water to prove
their innocence.
Witches usually faced severe and painful
deaths or punishments.
Decline of Prosecutions

Legal treatment of witchcraft, both the

laws and court procedure, became
extremely harsh and most of the time
fatal.
Amount of physical suffering in a
society and the methods prescribed by
that society to deal with it = too many
deaths.
Decline of Prosecutions
Changes in medical knowledge (how
unfortunate things happen. Ex. Diseases and
such)
To blame a witch was to explain misfortune in
personal terms. As such it competed with other
explanations.
Accusations
Female sexuality
Being organized
Having magical powers affecting health healing or
harming
The Elizabethan era
15581603
 The Elizabethan era was an important period in the
history of England. It was known as the Renaissance
age. Many developments and inventions and new ideas
were introduced during the Elizabethan era. The
printing technology was introduced during this period.
People showed interest in various sciences and
inventions. Knowledge became power during this
period. However, the increased knowledge about
science and technology led to belief in the supernatural
and in superstitions.
The superstitions that originated
during the Elizabethan era were
based on various beliefs and
traditions. Many of these beliefs are
based on those from the Dark Ages.

Fear of the forces of nature coupled

with a fear of the supernatural
resulted in the belief in superstitions
during the Elizabethan period.
Witches of the Elizabethan Era
Superstitions and belief in witches and
witchcraft were at its height during the
Elizabethan period. People believed in the
supernatural ability of the witches and this
led to the development of many
superstitions during this period. It was
women who were mostly associated with
witchcraft.

During the Elizabethan era, around 247

women were put under trial for allegedly
engaged in witchcraft. People blamed
unpleasant events such as the bubonic
plague, crop failures, bad harvest, and death
of animals and so on as the handiwork of
the witches. A witch had an image of an old
crooked woman who kept pets such as black
cats, wolves, snarling dogs and blackbirds for
company.
Video links
Witchcraft Part 1
Part 2
WITCH HYSTERIA

Accusation Is All You Need

Skin doesnt bleed when poked
Sink in water
Birthmarks
Confession under torture
Guide: Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer
of Witches)

Your Punishment
Burning at stake (if no confession)
Hanging (if confessed)

Chain Reaction
Salem Witch Trials (1692) 20 Executed
The church
Associated women with sex
Church felt medical care was for the noble and elite
Prevented it from being recognized as a profession
Female healing was part of the peasant class
Devils power
Rye Rot
15th Century Medical science
Prescriptions for toothache:
Write the following on the jaw of the patient : In the name of the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen; or
Touch a needle to the back of a caterpillar, then touch the tooth

Physician to Edward II, Bachelors degree in theology and doctorate of

medicine
15th century magic
Extensive understanding of bones, muscles, herbs,
and drugs
Paracelsus
Medical education
Establishment of medicine as a profession
Only university educated doctors could practice
medicine
Even elite women could not attend (until late 1700s)
All medical practice, except midwifery
 Only women attended women in childbirth.
Birthing women were in control, choosing who should
attend them and where and how to give birth.
Men were usually excluded unless they were needed
for their strength and their tools if labor was
obstructed.
17th & 18 th centuries
Women were discredited in middle class
Barber-Surgeons
Use of surgical instruments
 With the medicalization of childbirth, male physicians became
involved, introducing new techniques that interfered with the
normal birth process and competed with midwives.
By the 19th century, midwives struggled to hold onto their
profession and advance through education. Midwives survived
in Europe, but in North America, they were eventually usurped
in the early 20th century when birth began taking place in
hospitals and as medical science and technology advanced.
 Rural vs urban created need for obstetrics
Traditional place of birth was home
In Europe, in the 18th and 19th centuries, with the specialization of
obstetrics, doctors established lying-in hospitals or wards in major
hospitals.
Asepsis was unknown, so, with unclean hands and tools, physicians
examined women and tended to the birth of their babies, leading to
epidemics of puerperal fever, which caused thousands of maternal
deaths.
 By the end of the 19th century, germ theory was finally
accepted, and the advent of anesthesia made surgery
safer and free of pain. Anesthesia administered for pain
in childbirth became desirable for many women who
chose physicians as their birth attendants.
 By 1951, 90% of births took place in hospitals. By
midcentury, lay and granny midwives were almost
annihilated, and then nurse-midwives and midwifery
schools emerged. But this group was not autonomous
as the traditional midwives were.
 Midwives eventually rose again as educated nurse-midwives.
Technology and obstetric interventions in normal childbirth continue,
in spite of lack of evidence of their efficacy.
Midwives are again in jeopardy because of rising malpractice
insurance costs, women's trust in technology, and, most recently,
renewed efforts by physicians to once again prevent midwives from
practicing autonomously and outside the hospital environment in
North America.
Back up a bit..
1800s, women joined practices with their husbands
Men did surgery, women did midwifery and gyne
and provided the caring
Doctors has heroic measures: bleeding, laxatives, and
later opium
1830s and 40s
Popular Health Movement
Women were learning about their bodies,
health, and hygiene
Doctors were rejected
1900s
Paternalistic
Subservient role in medicine.nurses
Women allowed in medical schools but not to practice
in hospitals
Lack of science/ special body of knowledge
nurses
Unpaid informal occupation woman nursing
someone
Hospital nurses cared for the poor, drank a lot, were
sexually deviant
Florence nightingale
Lady of the Lamp
Reform hospital nursing ~1853-56
As doctors were training, the needed good nurses
Special body of knowledge (attracted
upper class women)
Formalized education
 Nursing can be viewed as a product of oppression in
upper class Victorian women
Care of sick was natural for women
Transplanted from home to hospital
Brought a sense of wifely obedience to the doctor
And a sense of mother to the patient
 Household manager
Essentially low-paid heavy-duty housework
Instinctive work
Doctors were skeptical
Nurses relied solely on doctors orders
Bedside care
Powerless
Philosophy of nursing
Educated women
Cultural values
Lady-like
Vocation: #1 mother; #2 nurse
Possibility of being educated and licensed like doctors
was raised
Nursing 2017
Criteria of a profession
Autonomous
Collaboration
Diverse
~300,000 in Canada
Midterm next week
30 multiple choice/true false
6 short answer questions
Worth 60 marks, 30% of course grade
120 mins to write