Healing and Hurting

Published: July 31, 2021, 5:30 a.m.

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If you were poor what kind of medical help could you expect in the Highlands and islands in the 1850s? You\\u2019d better believe there were some pretty grim remedies in your future. Dr Daisy Cunynghame heritage manager and librarian of the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh introduces Susan Morrison to \\u2018Remote and rural remedies\\u2019 their new online resource on Highland medicine then and now. You might have been better off with your local accused witch in earlier days. Dr Sierra Dye of Guelph University Canada takes Susan into a zealous witch-hunter\\u2019s first case and the rare healing charms it reveals. If healing wasn\\u2019t your thing, there was always poison, but by the Victorian period forensic experts like the accomplished Dr Henry Littlejohn of Edinburgh were hot on the heels of murderers. Louise Wilkie of Surgeons\\u2019 Hall Museums Edinburgh introduces us to one of his most difficult cases.

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