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Women and Poor Relief in Seventeenth-Century France: The Early History of the Daughters of Charity (review)

When Mayerne was summarily expelled from France in 1618, England broke off diplomatic relations for seven months! Mayerne’s life soon became less interesting. James’s policy of coordinating a peaceful balance in Europe unravelled, and Charles had no such interests. He even denied Mayerne foreign travel, shrinking his role to that of a mere royal physician. Trevor-Roper’s is a superlative guide to Mayerne’s international adventures. He disclaims expertise in the history of medicine, and the reader feels the lack of it, especially for the years after 1625. Mayerne played a key role in the creation of the Society of Apothecaries (1617) and the publication of the London Pharmacopoeia (1618). Mayerne also worked with William Harvey on a project for public health and the prevention of plague in 1631, he shared Hermetic and alchemical interests with Robert Fludd, and both were fellow royal physicians. In these medical matters Trevor-Roper could not weave his magic and integrate the threads left by Mayerne into the richer tapestry of context. Mayerne left only half-completed manuscripts, although his casebooks with their pioneering detail were analyzed effectively by Brian Nance in his Turquet de Mayerne as Baroque Physician.1 But, precisely because Mayerne’s strictly medical legacy was limited, we knew little about his life until now. This book does not advance the internal history of physic, but it is a superb study of a physician in context. The historical style is, of course, old-fashioned. One is brought up short not by difficult theory but by phrases like “magisterial exordium” or pot shots at Cambridge University. Nevertheless, Trevor-Roper’s famous narrative style shines through as he portrays Mayerne fashioning a life that was variously that of revered physician, astute courtier, and principled survivor in complex and dangerous circumstances.