dministered
medicine to Richard Dunbar in 1700. The wife of Edward Good was sought
out in 1678 to cure a head sore and another "doctress" impressed the
Reverend John Clayton, who had some insights into medical science
himself, with her ability to cure the bite of a rattlesnake by using
the drug dittany. In the same year that Good's wife was sought to treat
the head sore, a Mrs. Grendon dispensed medicine to an individual who
had injured his eyes in a fight. The exact status of these women,
however, is unknown; it is highly unlikely that the female practicing
medicine enjoyed the professional standing of a Dr. Pott or a Dr.
Bohun--an old female slave also appears in the record as a doctor.

With medical knowledge limited and antisepsis unknown, the expectant
mother of the seventeenth century fared better with a midwife than she
would have with a physician. The midwife, whose training consisted of
experience and apprenticeship at best, allowed the birth to be as free
from human interference as possible and did not do a pre-delivery
infection-producing examination.

Both the fees and the prestige of the midwife, judging by contemporary
records from other colonies, were high. Unfortunately, the early
Virginia sources throw little light on the activities of the midwife in
this colony. Among the scattered references from Virginia records are
found charges of 100 pounds of tobacco for the service of a midwife;
the presence of two midwives assisted by two nurses and other women at
a single birth; the payment of twelve hens for obstetrical services;
and the delivery of a bastard child by a midwife.

Nursing duties were probably taken on by both men and women in addition
to their regular occupations. The duties consisted not only of tending
the sick--and there is no reason to believe this was done under the
supervision of a physician--but also of burying the dead and arranging
the funerals. While the patient lived, the nurse prepared food, washed
linen, and did other chores to make the patient comfortable. When death
came, the nurse was "the good woman who shall dress me and put me in my
coffin," and who provided "entertainment of those that came to bury him
with 3 vollys of shott & diging his grave with the trouble of his
funeral included."

The medical ramifications of witchcraft have been suggested. One of the
most interesting Virginia court cases of the century had as its
principal subject a woman accused of the power to