author
Practitioner in physick Thomas Sherwood
Known today for a single surviving book, this little-known 17th-century medical writer offered practical advice for facing plague and smallpox in London. His work gives a vivid glimpse of how ordinary readers were taught to think about disease long before modern medicine.
1 Audiobook
The Charitable Pestmaster; Or, The Cure of the Plague Conteining a few short and necessary instructions how to preserve the body from infection of the plagve, as also to cure those that are infected. Together with a little treatise concerning the cure of the small pox.
by Practitioner in physick Thomas Sherwood
About the author
Thomas Sherwood was an English medical writer described on his 1641 title page as a "practitioner in physick." He is known for The Charitable Pestmaster; Or, The Cure of the Plague, a short guide that sets out ways to prevent infection, recognize illness, and treat plague, with an added section on smallpox.
The book was published in London in 1641 and presented as a helpful manual for both poor and wealthy readers. It was dedicated to Alexander Read, a doctor of physic and surgery, which suggests Sherwood was writing within the medical world of his time even if few biographical details about his life now survive.
Very little else about Sherwood can be confirmed from the sources I found. That makes the book itself especially interesting: it preserves the voice of a working medical practitioner writing during an age of recurring epidemics, and it remains a small but memorable document in the history of early public health writing.