“An Account of an Unaccountable Distemper”: The Experience of Pain in Early Eighteenth-Century England and France

Abstract

Drawing on early eighteenth-century medical consultation letters addressed to Sir Hans Sloane and Étienne-François Geoffroy, this article examines sufferers’ descriptions of pain. The pervasiveness of humoral theory meant that patients in both England and France understood and perceived their bodily experiences similarly. Humoral theory was also particularly flexible, allowing for patients to describe in detail their pain, as well as to express the mind-body overlap of suffering. Fear and anxiety surrounded the experience of pain, particularly when patients had not received a diagnosis. Letter-writing may have helped sufferers to find meaning, as well as describe their illness to the physician.