Healing Words

The book studies the language of Restoration London irregular medical practitioners emerging from their printed handbills. Findings consist of the pragmatic features of quacks' communication, including images, the strategic use of printing in advertising, and the detection of a previously unknown source of a well-spread anti-quack satiric broadsheet.

During the English Restoration, London unlicensed health carers printed handbills as the easiest way to advertise their medical practices. In order to increase our awareness of irregular medical practitioners as a cultural phenomenon and examine their language, two collections of handbills have been transcribed. The study analyses the lexicon used to address readers, the traits of orality in written communication as well as the places where proprietary medicines were sold. Furthermore it looks closely at the visual impact of some handbills and the role of anti-quack satire at the end of the seventeenth century.

Autorentext

Roberta Mullini is Professor of English Literature at the University of Urbino Carlo Bo (Italy). She has published widely on late medieval and early modern theatre and drama. Her present interests also include cultural studies and historical linguistics.

Zusammenfassung
«Through the dialogue between science and humanities and thanks to the interdisciplinary approach chosen by Mullini in her latest book, we get a broad and rich vision of a period, of a profession, and of a type of communication which can only enrich our awareness and knowledge of history, literature, and society while, at the same time, confirming the necessity for the true scholar to cross the borders between disciplines in order to reach a wider, and deeper, perspective.»
(Alessandra Calanchi, Rivista di Letterature moderne e comparate 2/2016)

Inhalt

Contents: Historical Context - A Corpus-based Approach to the Language of Quacks - Common Complaints in Corpora from the Medical Domain - How Quacks Addressed their Audience - Quacks and the Media - Three Case Studies: Men, Women, and a Courtier.