Curated by Christopher Booth, Department of Classics and Archaeology, University of Nottingham
A Little Book of Cures, Described in Case Histories and Empirically Proven, Tried and Tested in Certain Places and on Noted People is the manuscript casebook of Physician John Hall, Shakespeare’s son-in-law. Written between 1630 and 1635, with notes of cases spanning 1611 to 1635, Hall wrote this unique survival in Latin, emulating the Continental medical writers whose works he used in his practice.
The first complete translation by Dr Greg Wells (1947-2017), accompanied by significant additional research which contextualises the text, has been published by Manchester University Press (January 2020) in association with The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust: John Hall, Master of Physicke: a casebook from Shakespeare's Stratford.
Building upon the work of Dr Wells, this exhibition explores Hall’s medical practice, the patients he saw, and his spiritual and medical conviction.