ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts of the concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. This book improves the clarity of our vision regarding the medical world of seventeenth-century England and It concentrates not upon death, but upon illness, an important part of life in any era. The seventeenth-century experience of illness included the activities of medical practitioners. Sufferers and healers shared the responsibility of dealing with illness, injury, handicap, childbirth and ageing. However, illness affects many people beside the sufferer. In seventeenth-century England it involved friends, relations, neighbours, servants, masters and healers. Epidemic diseases affected whole communities. There were respectable illnesses, such as gout and ague; frightening, but nearly inevitable diseases, such as smallpox; disreputable diseases, such as syphilis; and terrifying diseases, such as the plague. The Royal College of Physicians approved of the plague legislation, although few of its members stayed around to help deal with the resulting terror and mortality.
