ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the experience of sufferer and healer combined. A woman's duty involved both suffering (particularly childbearing) and healing. The chapter examines a diary and an autobiography written by seventeenth-century women. Alice Thornton's autobiography is a good source for information concerning breast-feeding, and tells the tale of a gentlewoman whose status was in decline. Alice's approach to illness was quite conventional. Concern about surfeit and cold reveal a basically humoral orientation. Alice suffered from the effects of her illness for a long time after the birth. She had a 'terrible shaking ague' for three months, which gave her two fits a day. Margaret Hoby's experience of illness serves as a reminder of the dangers of basing historical generalisations on assumptions regarding the behaviour of people whose circumstances conform to predetermined categories. Margaret's healing activities smack of noblesse oblige. She gave medical treatment as charity partly because she was skilful, partly because God approved.
