A Briefe Discovrse of a Disease called the Suffocation of the Mother

A curious window into early‑seventeenth‑century medicine, this work opens with a clear‑spoken warning against the easy rush to blame witchcraft or demonic possession for a baffling malady. The author, a practising physician, sets out to demonstrate that the strange symptoms once attributed to “the suffocation of the mother” have natural, physiological roots. By cataloguing the various bodily faculties—vital, animal and natural—he shows how each can be disturbed, offering a systematic picture that feels both scholarly and surprisingly accessible.

The treatise proceeds through a series of concise chapters, each addressing a different facet of the disease, its causes and its remedies. Written for both learned colleagues and the lay public, it balances earnest humility with confident authority, inviting listeners into a dialogue that bridges superstition and early scientific thought. As the author appeals to his fellow physicians for critique, the text captures the collaborative spirit of a time when medicine was still defining its own boundaries.