Mary Harrison's Book of Recipes. Women and Household Medicine in Late 17th Century

Abstract

The present article traces the history of manuscript production and transmission of medical knowledge practised in the household environment. To this end, a hitherto unexplored compilation of medical recipes by Mary Harrison in Glasgow University Library Manuscript Ferguson 61 was scrutinised. Her manuscript illustrates how early modern women’s medical writing was produced and circulated at the time it was written. The recipe compilation is to be seen as a dynamic artefact which expands with time. Likewise, the language and the structure of the medical recipes in her manuscript are explored in context to trace their development since Middle English times as a way to evidence similarities and variations with older and contemporary  compilations.