Remedies guaranteed to cure hypochondria and malingering!
Short life sketch of Zerubbabel Endecott
© 2013 Christy K Robinson
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Print by Jan van der Bruggen, 1665-1690.
Interior of a surgery with a surgeon seated on a barrel and operating on a peasant man, an old woman standing with her arm in a sling, several shelves on walls in background, a stuffed animal hanging from ceiling. Mezzotint. |
Be very glad for modern scientific research, sterility, and effective and measured anesthesia, none of which were known in 17th-century Europe or North America. You wouldn't want your childbirth pain treated with cat's blood and human milk, curing your nosebleed with hog's dung, or your seizures treated with Salt of Man's Skull (exactly as it sounds).
Gov. John Endecott was the man I call the “Hammer of the Quakers.” He sentenced Quaker missionaries to severe whippings, starvation and exposure, imprisonment, and death. He sentenced Mary Dyer to death by hanging for her civil disobedience, and countenanced the brutal torture and incarceration of Quakers throughout the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Baptists were also treated in an extremely harsh manner from at least 1650 on.
Gov. John Endecott had fathered an
illegitimate son in England
in the 1610s or 1620s, but wrote at least one letter saying that although he
was providing some money for his upkeep, the boy was not to be sent to New England under any circumstances. John been married in England in the mid-1620s to an Anna Gover, but they had no children,
and she died soon after her arrival in Massachusetts Bay. In August 1630, he married the widow Mrs. Elizabeth Gibson. She bore him two sons, John Jr., and Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel was born about 1635 in Salem.
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The Maypole of Merry Mount: Thomas Morton &
the Puritan Patriarchs, By Richard Drinnon
https://www.jstor.org/journal/massreview The Massachusetts Review Vol. 21, No. 2 (Summer, 1980), pp. 382-410 (29 pages) |
When he was about 18 years of age, Zerubbabel was accused of
raping his mother’s indentured lace-maker, Elizabeth Due/Dew. Testimony of other female servants told of Zerubbabel's serial sexual harassment and that they didn't want to be left alone with him. The servant girl Elizabeth, who gave birth in 1653-54, continued to accuse
Zerubbabel even after her trial for slander, two serious public whippings totaling about 30 lashes,
being released from her indenture early as a hush-reward, being hurriedly married off to another servant, Cornelius Hulett, who endured a whipping he didn't deserve, and
told to leave.
As part of my research, I found some Hulett/Hewlett young adults in Rhode Island about 20-30 years later, but could not connect them with Elizabeth and Cornelius, so there's no proof they were related. Elizabeth and Cornelius disappeared from records, and I wonder if they changed their surname, died of a disease, lived off the grid (to use an anachronism), or moved back to England.
Gov. John Endecott was not having his first grandchild born illegitimately, and of rape, to a mere servant girl, and he was not chaining his son to her for life, as the courts usually did after publicly whipping both fornicating parties.
As part of my research, I found some Hulett/Hewlett young adults in Rhode Island about 20-30 years later, but could not connect them with Elizabeth and Cornelius, so there's no proof they were related. Elizabeth and Cornelius disappeared from records, and I wonder if they changed their surname, died of a disease, lived off the grid (to use an anachronism), or moved back to England.
Gov. John Endecott was not having his first grandchild born illegitimately, and of rape, to a mere servant girl, and he was not chaining his son to her for life, as the courts usually did after publicly whipping both fornicating parties.
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| Gov. John Endecott in the 1650s. He may be wearing the lace made by his wife's abused servant. |
After his shameful conduct for which he was never tried, Zerub—as I shall abbreviate his
name—was immediately wedded, about eight years earlier than most young men would marry, to a woman named Mary Smith, and then he was not heard
of for a few years. Zerub probably sailed away to England for medical education as a chirugeon (surgeon). The
custom was to read medicine in the home of a physician and go with him on
patient rounds. In any case, he was back in Massachusetts by 1659, for he and his
brother John were fined for drunkenness, another blow to the pride of his father, the governor.
Zerub and Mary had ten children during
their 23 years of marriage. He was made a freeman in 1665 (the year his father died). He was a winning defendant in a trespass suit by a Mr. Nurse (of the Mrs. Rebecca Nurse witchcraft name) in June 1683, Zerub having logged valuable timber for firewood off the land in question; several Salemites testified that he had logged within his own boundaries. Five months later, he made his will, which indicates a life-threatening injury or illness, and two months after that he died.
Zerub’s will, made before his death at age 49 in the winter of 1684,
specified cash bequests of £50 each to his daughters Mary, Sarah, Elisabeth,
Hanna, and Mehetabel; farm properties to his sons; to his son John, also a physician, he left “all my
Instruments and books of phisicke and chirurgery.” The inventory of medical instruments
showed “a case of lances, 2 Rasors, a box of Instruments, a saw with six
Instruments for a Chirurgion, a curb bit.”
During Zerub’s medical practice, he took notes and in 1677 wrote a
short book, entitled Synopsis Medicinae
or a Compendium of Galenical and Chymical Physick Showing the Art of Healing according to the Precepts
of Galen & Paracelsus Fitted universally to the whole Art of Healing. It
contains directions for mixing and applying medicines for the cure of disease or healing from surgery. The
manuscript bears the byline “Zorubbabel Endecott.” You can find the booklet in
several formats, HERE.
The following recipes are a few of the concoctions Dr. Zerubbabel Endecott
preferred for his treatment of Salem
patients between 1659 and 1684. Interesting ingredients, considering the witchcraft craze less than 10 years later.
For ye Colic or Flux
in ye Belly
the powder of Wolves guts
the powder of Boars Stones [testicles?]
oil of Wormwood a drop or 2 into
the Navel
3 drops of oil of Fennel & 2
drops of oil of mints in Conserve of Roses or Conserve of single mallows, if ye
Pain be extreme Use it again, & if need Require apply something hot to the
belly
For Vomiting &
Looseness in Men Women & Children
Take an Egg break a Little hole in
one end of it & put out ye white then put in about 1/2 spoonful of bay
salt then fill up the egg with strong Rum or spirits of wine & set it in
hot ashes & Let it boil till ye egg be dry then take it & eat it
fasting & fast an hour after it or drink a Little distilled wafers of mint
& fennel which waters mixed together & drank will help most ordinary
Cases
For a Person that is
Distracted If it be a Woman
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| No cat's blood! "Take a he-Cat & Cut off one of his Ears or a piece of it & Let it bleed..." |
Take milk of a Nurse that gives
suck to a male Child & also take a he-Cat & Cut off one of his Ears or
a piece of it & Let it bleed into the milk & then Let the sick woman
Drink it, do this three Times
For the Shingles
Take house leek, Cats blood, and
Cream mixed together & oint the place warm or take the moss that groweth
in a well & Cats blood mixed & so apply it warm to the place where
shingles be.
For a Cancer in a
Womans Breast
A woman at Casko bay had a Cancer
in her breast which after much means used in Vain they applied strong beer to
it with Double Cloths which it drank in Very Greedily & was something eased
afterwards beer failing they Used Rum in Like manner which seem to Lull it
asleep afterwards they put Arsenic into it and dressing it twice a day it was
Perfectly whole in the mean time her Kind husband by Sucking drew her breast
with ye Loss of his Fore teeth without any farther hurt. Re New Englands
Experiences
For Sharp & Difficult
Travail in Women with Child
Take a Lock of Virgins hair on any
Part of ye head, of half the Age of ye woman in travail. Cut it very small to
fine Powder then take 12 Ants Eggs dried in an oven after ye bread is drawn or
otherwise make them dry & make them to powder with the hair, give this with
a quarter of a pint of Red Cows milk or for want of it give it in strong ale
wort.
For ye Tooth Ache
Take a Little Piece of opium as big
as a great pins head & put it into the hollow place of the Aching Tooth
& it will give present Ease, often tried by me upon many People & never
failed. Zerobabel Endecott.
Falling Sickness (epilepsy or seizure)
In Children. has of the dung of a
black Cow 3i. given to a newborn Infant, doth not only preserve from the Epilepsia,
but also cure it. In those of ripe Age. The livers of 40 water-Frogs brought
into a powder, and given at five times (in Spirit of Rosemary or Lavender)
morning and evening, will cure, the sick not eating nor drinking two hours
before nor after it. — Compendium of
Physick (Salmon), London,
1671.
Salt of Mans Skull. The skull of a
dead man, calcine it, and extract the Salts as that of Tartar. It is a real
cure for the Falling-sickness. Vertigo, Lethargy, Numbness, and all capital diseases,
in which it is a wonderful prevalent.— Compendium
of Physick (Salmon), London,
1671.
To stop bleeding of
the nose
If the flux be violent, open a vein
on the same side, and cause the sick to smell to a dried Toad, or Spiders tied
up in a rag; the fumes of Horns and Hair is very good, and the powder of Toads
to be blowed up the Nose; in extremity, put teats made of Swines-dung up the
nostrils. — Compendium of Physick (Salmon),
London, 1671.
Hog’s Dung is also used by the
Country People to stop Bleeding at the Nose; by being externally applied cold
to the Nostrils. –English Dispensatory
(Quincy), London,
1742.
