#botonicals

It's nearly the season of the witch: time for some cauldron chemistry

Midwives and nurses sometimes came under suspicion because of their specialised knowledge and success - or failure - in treating those who were sick. These healing roles were traditionally taken on by women who, until around the turn of the nineteenth century, were excluded from formal medical training. However, many still practiced medicine in their homes and villages, and what they had learned came from shared knowledge and trial and error, rather than accepted official sources. A medical education might not have been a great help in any case. In the days before germ theory the causes of sickness and the reasons for recovery were not obvious. Any recoveries could be seen as miraculous ... or the result of witchcraft.

Treating sickness and disease pre-germ theory was largely guesswork. All sorts of noxious compounds were administered to ailing individuals, and if they produced any effect on the body, be it vomiting, diarrhoea or sweating, it was seen as a good thing – and that was the practice of the so-called professionals. It is not hard to see how images of unofficial healers and herbalists (both men and women) stooping over boiling pots of herbs, roots and who-knows-what, could become a template for the image of a witch, especially when many of the concoctions they produced had such unpleasant effects on their patients.