Description: The autobiography of Lady Grace Mildmay is one of the earliest extant complete autobiographies written by a woman in her own hand in English. Recent scholarship in the history of medicine denies the existence of a medical profession in Tudor-Stuart England and highlights the importance of women in the medical services. Lady Mildmay's medical papers illustrate the type of treatment practised by women, the range of ailments they were prepared to treat, how medicines were manufactured, what ingredients were used and what they cost - and they show that there was little difference between the care offered by a university-trained physician and a self-taught woman. Although women were often severely condemned by the professional medical community, Lady Grace Mildmay was praised for her work in curing the poor.

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