Lecture: Bite the Bullet: 18th Century Medicine

This lecture is designed to acquaint audiences with the state of medical knowledge and some of the practices of medicine in the time of George Washington.

Physicians were frequently confounded by the causes of illness, treated symptoms, and relied heavily on the healing powers of nature.

The lecture quotes from the diary of travelling midwife Martha Ballard of northern Massachusetts, who kept a record of her work as a healer and a midwife.