Leong, Elaine; (2024) Vernacular Medical Print: Or How to Read a Recipe Book. In: Weisser, Olivia, (ed.) Early Modern Medicine: An Introduction to Source Analysis. Routledge: Abingdon, UK.

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Abstract

This chapter focuses on early modern life writing, an umbrella term for first-hand accounts of lived experiences. Sources include diaries, memoirs, autobiographies, spiritual journals, memoranda books, account books, and more. The chapter walks through the advantages and limits of these sources and how to use them to examine topics in the history of medicine. But foremost, it offers strategies for shifting away from surface-level reporting and toward deeper interpretation of life writing. Analytical approaches include asking specific kinds of questions; attending to genre conventions, authorial intent, and audience; and finding and explaining patterns. Reading and thinking about life writing in their totality, beyond discrete episodes of interest, can situate medical matters within a constellation of a life and can turn the challenges of these types of sources – namely, scope, length, and detail – into key virtues.

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