Andrew McConnell Stott

Apr 19, 2024 | laphamsquarterly.org | Colin Dickey |Andrew McConnell Stott |Jamie James |Andrew Blum

In September 1863, a local paper in Somerset, England, ran an article about a man and a woman from Taunton whose child had been stricken with scarlet fever. Depressingly common, a child suffering from the illness itself was not noteworthy—what made the news were the remedies proposed. Distraught, the parents had turned to a group of women for advice, and this “jury of matrons,” in the paper’s words, all agreed that there was no hope of survival.