Book Review

Thomas Phaer and The Boke of Chyldren (1544)

N Engl J Med 2000; 342:361February 3, 2000

Article

Thomas Phaer and The Boke of Chyldren (1544)
(Medieval & Renaissance Text & Studies. Vol. 201). By Rick Bowers. 100 pp. Tempe, Ariz. Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1999. $22. ISBN: 0-86698-243-4

When the Arabs swept across northern Africa into Europe, they brought with them mathematics, science, and religious diversity — sparks to kindle the Renaissance. Greek, Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew texts were translated, transcribed, and distributed by Christian, Jewish, and Muslim scholars. After the development of printing (around 1450), there was rapid dissemination of knowledge. By 1500, there were hundreds of printing presses in Europe, each printing hundreds of books. The Renaissance spread like wildfire.

Thomas Phaer (1510?–1560) was a product of this phenomenon. He was a lawyer, physician, scientist, classicist, poet, and member of Parliament. Rick Bowers, the author and editor of the slim book under review, rightly calls him “a Renaissance polymath.” Phaer was also a social activist. In the 1500s, England was undergoing social and legal turmoil. Phaer felt that the common people should understand the new laws. He is generally accepted as the author of a popular English translation of a legal text, Natura Brevium (1530?), which informed the public about the law in the language of the people. He then wrote a popular do-it-yourself law book, A New Boke of Presidentes (1543), which showed “the making of those things [legal documents], whereupon dependeth the welth & living of men . . . to the intent that it may be the easelyer taken & perceyved of them that are but meanly learned.”

One year later, he translated into English and published a popular book on general health, Jehan Goeurot's Regiment of Life. Because it lacked sufficient information on children, he wrote The Boke of Chyldren, the first pediatric text in English. Phaer's social intent was explicit: “to do them good that have the moost nede, that is to say chyldren . . . and to distrybute in Englysshe to them that are unlerned part of the treasure that is in other languages . . . to declare that to the use of the many which ought not to be secrete for lucre of a fewe. . . . How longe wold they have the people ignoraunt . . . that we shulde buy our health only of them and at theyr price.” He was a precursor of Benjamin Spock. His Boke of Chyldren was the Tudor equivalent of Spock's Baby and Child Care and Spock's child advocacy.

Even when it is set in Garamond type, Phaer's work is not easy to read. Uniformity of spelling did not exist when the work was published originally; Phaer spelled phonetically. His writing needs to be read out loud (at least mentally) to be understandable. When this is done, the marvelous poetic cadence of Tudor English comes through, and the meaning becomes clear. One goes back in time to see and feel the condition of children in Tudor England — the boils, scabs, and lice along with the colic, convulsions, and serious infections.

The advice given is a curious admixture of dependence on the authority of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Muslim ancients with country folklore and Phaer's own observations. His comments on nursing and breast milk (probably taken from Soranus [a.d. 98–138]) and the “nail test” (which I was taught about in medical school in 1944) are curiously modern. His suggestions on obscuring vision to cure squint (“google eyes,” taken from Eucharius Rösslin's Byrth of Mankynde [1540]) is only a step removed from what is done at present. His suggestion of gradual, not rapid, rewarming for “styfness or starknes of lymmes” due to hypothermia is akin to today's approach. The sections on cradle cap and head lice (“scalles of the heed”), sleep resistance (“watchyng out of measure”), night terrors (“terryble dreams and feare in the sleep”), cramps, teething, “pyssing in bedde,” chilblains (“kybes”), body lice, and scabies describe conditions that are still of concern today. The concoctions suggested for treatment are awesome, even in this day of alternative medicine. Fortunately, the herbs, minerals, and animal parts recommended by Phaer are not readily available.

There have been several reproductions of The Boke of Chyldren. John Ruhräh printed it verbatim in his Pediatrics of the Past (New York: P.B. Hoeber, 1925); George Frederick Still quoted from it extensively in his History of Paediatrics (Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 1931). A.V. Neale and Hugh R.E. Wallis reprinted the work in 1955, 1957, and 1965 (London: E & S Livingstone). These reproductions were from 1545, 1567, and 1553 editions, respectively. Rick Bowers provides the original text of the first (1544) edition from the Huntington Library (San Marino, Calif.). The differences in the text are not great. Only Bowers's edition is readily available, however. His book is therefore timely — he has made Phaer's work available once more. In addition, Bowers includes an excellent updated biography and places The Boke of Chyldren, with its particular literary style, in historical context. I wish that his introduction had been longer.

In the 16th century, many of the social and political views we espouse today were initiated in England. Phaer's Boke of Chyldren and its emphasis on the health and development of children is an important example of these views. Thomas Phaer's admonition “to do them good that have the moost nede, that is to say chyldren” is as valid today in the United States as it was almost 500 years ago in England.

Ralph J. Wedgwood, M.D.
University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98105-5436