Renaissance medicine wasn’t ignorant—its cures were stranger and smarter than you think.

Step back into a world of blood, bones, bile, and groundbreaking innovation as Dr Alanna Skuse dismantles the biggest myths about Renaissance medicine. From battlefield surgeries and prosthetics, to midwives, quacks, toads, and the four humours, this episode reveals a medical world far more logical, experimental, and effective than popular history suggests.

Discover why Renaissance surgeons weren’t reckless, why quacks sometimes worked wonders, and why patients were far from naïve. Packed with bizarre cures, pioneering breakthroughs, and the surprising origins of modern treatments, this is the ultimate guide to the misunderstood world of 16th and 17th-century healing.

Whether you're into medical history, social history, early modern England, quackery, midwifery, apothecaries, or surgical innovation, this episode of History Rage delivers deep insight, dark humour, and a fresh perspective.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

Why Renaissance medical practitioners were not ignorant or cruel
How surgeons made astonishing breakthroughs long before modern medicine
Why patients demanded treatments like bloodletting
The strange power of quacks—and why some were surprisingly effective
How apothecaries, midwives, and women healers shaped everyday healthcare
The bizarre logic behind cures involving toads, spiders, and boiling puppies
The truth about syphilis nose reconstruction, battlefield prosthetics, and chemical medicine
Why the four humours actually made intuitive sense
What Renaissance medical thinking still influences today
What future historians will find horrifying about modern treatments

About Our Guest: Dr Alanna Skuse

Dr Alanna Skuse is a literary scholar, medical historian, and author specialising in early modern disease, surgery, and the cultural history of the body. Her latest trade book uncovers the real experience of staying alive in Renaissance England.

📚 Buy Her Book

The Surgeon, the Midwife, the Quack: How to Stay Alive in Renaissance England

👉 https://uk.bookshop.org/a/10120/9781836430773

📨 Contact / Follow Dr Alanna Skuse

Website: https://www.dralannaskuse.co.uk/

Twitter / X: @alanna_skuse

Instagram: @historian_alanna

Explore More Medical History Episodes

If this episode left you hungry for more medical history:

Ep 161 – Karen Bloom Gevirtz on 17th-century healer-women
Ep 56 – Louise Wilkie on Robert Liston & Victorian surgery

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280. Stop Calling Renaissance Doctors Stupid with Alanna Skuse