Alanna Skuse's Books

Constructions of Cancer in Early Modern England

Ravenous Natures

By: Alanna Skuse

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Constructions of Cancer in Early Modern England

Ravenous Natures

By: Alanna Skuse

This book is open access under a CC-BY licence. Cancer is perhaps the modern world's most feared disease. Yet, we know relatively little about this malady's history before the nineteenth century. This book provides the first in-depth examination of perceptions of cancerous disease in early modern England. Looking to drama, poetry and polemic as well as medical texts and personal accounts, it contends that early modern people possessed an understanding of cancer which remains recognizable to us today. Many of the ways in which medical practitioners and lay people imagined cancer – as a 'woman's disease' or a 'beast' inside the body – remain strikingly familiar, and they helped to make this disease a byword for treachery and cruelty in discussions of religion, culture and politics. Equally, cancer treatments were among the era's most radical medical and surgical procedures. From buttered frog ointments to agonizing and dangerous surgeries, they raised abiding questions about the nature of disease and the proper role of the medical practitioner.

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373

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Springer

Published Date

ISBN 10

1137487534

ISBN 13

9781137487537

Surgery and Selfhood in Early Modern England

Altered Bodies and Contexts of Identity

By: Alanna Skuse

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Surgery and Selfhood in Early Modern England

Altered Bodies and Contexts of Identity

By: Alanna Skuse

Offering an innovative perspective on early modern debates concerning embodiment, Alanna Skuse examines diverse kinds of surgical alteration, from mastectomy to castration, and amputation to facial reconstruction. Body-altering surgeries had profound socio-economic and philosophical consequences. They reached beyond the physical self, and prompted early modern authors to develop searching questions about the nature of body integrity and its relationship to the soul: was the body a part of one's identity, or a mere 'prison' for the mind? How was the body connected to personal morality? What happened to the altered body after death? Drawing on a wide variety of texts including medical treatises, plays, poems, newspaper reports and travel writings, this volume will argue the answers to these questions were flexible, divergent and often surprising, and helped to shape early modern thoughts on philosophy, literature, and the natural sciences. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

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Page Count

211

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Cambridge University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1108911501

ISBN 13

9781108911504

Constructions of Cancer in Early Modern England

Ravenous Natures

By: Alanna Skuse

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Constructions of Cancer in Early Modern England

Ravenous Natures

By: Alanna Skuse

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373

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Springer

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ISBN 10

1137487534

ISBN 13

9781137487537

Constructions of Cancer in Early Modern England

Ravenous Natures

By: Alanna Skuse

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Constructions of Cancer in Early Modern England

Ravenous Natures

By: Alanna Skuse

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219

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Palgrave Macmillan

Published Date

ISBN 10

1137487542

ISBN 13

9781137487544

Constructions of Cancer in Early Modern England

By: Alanna Skuse

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Constructions of Cancer in Early Modern England

By: Alanna Skuse

The study of early modern cancer is significant for our understanding of the period's medical theory and practice. In many respects, cancer exemplifies the flexibility of early modern medical thought, which managed to accommodate, seemingly without friction, the notion that cancer was a disease with humoral origins alongside the conviction that the malady was in some sense ontologically independent. Discussions of why cancer spread rapidly through the body, and was difficult, if not impossible, to cure, prompted various medical explanations at the same time that physicians and surgeons joined with non-medical authors in describing the disease as acting in a way that was 'malignant' in the fullest sense, purposely 'fierce', 'rebellious' and intractable.3 Theories seeking to explain why cancer appeared most often in the female breast similarly joined culturally mediated anatomical and humoral theory with recognition of the peculiarities of women's social, domestic and emotional life-cycles. Moreover, as a morbid disease, cancer generated eclectic and sometimes extreme medical responses, the mixed results of which would prompt many questions over the proper extent of pharmaceutical or surgical intervention. This work was published by Saint Philip Street Press pursuant to a Creative Commons license permitting commercial use. All rights not granted by the work's license are retained by the author or authors.

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228

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ISBN 10

101326729X

ISBN 13

9781013267291

Book's by Alanna Skuse

Constructions of Cancer in Early Modern England

Constructions of Cancer in Early Modern England

Surgery and Selfhood in Early Modern England

Surgery and Selfhood in Early Modern England

Constructions of Cancer in Early Modern England

Constructions of Cancer in Early Modern England

Constructions of Cancer in Early Modern England

Constructions of Cancer in Early Modern England

Constructions of Cancer in Early Modern England

Constructions of Cancer in Early Modern England

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