Gunn's Domestic Medicine (c. 1860) - John C. Gunn

Gunn's Domestic Medicine; or, Poor Man's Friend

John C. Gunn | New revised, improved and enlarged edition, 1860 | Historical PDF scan

What did families do when the nearest doctor was miles away? In nineteenth-century America, books like Gunn's Domestic Medicine promised to put the physician's knowledge into the hands of ordinary households.

First published in 1830 and issued in numerous editions, John C. Gunn's extraordinarily popular domestic medical guide combined practical household medicine, medicinal roots and herbs, and an unmistakably Victorian philosophy of health. This 1860 edition invites you into a world where the treatment of illness sat alongside discussions of fear, hope, anger, jealousy and love.

Why this book is remarkable

• Medicine for the home: a revealing account of how nineteenth-century families were encouraged to understand illness and care for the sick.
• Botanical traditions: historical descriptions of medicinal roots and herbs of the United States.
• The passions and the body: the opening chapters explore how emotions such as fear, hope, joy, anger, jealousy and grief were thought to affect health.
• A window into everyday life: discover the beliefs, anxieties and medical assumptions of an earlier age, including remedies that would be considered dangerous today.

One particularly striking passage notes that fear can disturb digestion and the nervous system; elsewhere, Gunn treats jealousy as a subject worthy of lengthy medical discussion. These observations make the book as interesting to historians of psychology and social life as to readers of botanical history.

Edition and format

Author: John C. Gunn
Original work first published: 1830
Edition reproduced: New revised, improved and enlarged edition, 1860
Format: Downloadable PDF of a historical printed volume
Collection: The Ancestral Library

Please note: This is a historical document supplied for research, education and curiosity, not a modern medical manual. It includes obsolete medical theories and potentially dangerous substances, treatments and instructions. Seek qualified medical advice for health concerns.

For lovers of forgotten remedies, historical herbalism and the curious history of the human body.