Does Anne’s conversation with Mary about little Charles prove that Jane Austen wasn’t a feminist? What exactly was an apothecary and why did they always want people to drink things? Learn the answers to these questions and more in this episode of My Cousin Jane.
Hey everybody, welcome back to My Cousin Jane. Today we’re going to be talking about Persuasion Chapter 7.
Chapter Summary
In brief
This chapter is exciting for two reasons. First of all, we have Captain Wentworth coming to dinner at the Great House, Charles Musgrove’s parents’ house, and of course Charles and Mary and Anne are all expected to show up as guests.
As you might imagine, this causes some anxiety for Anne. However, she’s spared from this uncomfortable situation by the happy fact that little Charles, Charles Musgrove’s son and the heir to his estate, the firstborn, falls out of a tree and dislocates his collarbone. Our discussion today is going to center around two things that occur as a result of this poor boy’s misfortune.
Of course, when this happens, everyone’s upset. They call off the dinner plans. No one’s sure what to do. Mary’s in hysterics. They call for the apothecary, and then the apothecary examines him, looks like everything’s fine. Then as the day goes on, Charles decides that maybe things are going to be fine, and he’ll go to dinner after all.
Quite a Female Case
Here we see an interesting dynamic between Charles and Mary, and their feelings about children, and about whose responsibility it is to take care of sick Charles. Let’s listen to this clip.
The child was to be kept in bed and amused as quietly as possible; but what was there for a father to do? This was quite a female case, and it would be highly absurd in him, who could be of no use at home, to shut himself up. Persuasion, Chapter 7
Quite a female case. Obviously this sentiment wouldn’t fly today, but during this time period—and this is interesting, because often critics will look at Jane Austen and her writing and have this debate. Was Jane Austen an advocate of equality for women, women’s rights? Was she a feminist in the modern sense of the term? Was she a feminist in some other sense of the term? Obviously, as a man, I’m not really qualified to get into this debate very well.
However, I will say that as a writer, we have to be careful how much we ascribe a character’s viewpoints to the author. Because obviously there are a lot of different characters, and we could say, well, everything the protagonist says is like a Mary Sue situation, with those feelings being Jane Austen’s personal feelings as well. However, we have such divergent viewpoints by different protagonists, I think it would be difficult to say conclusively that Jane had the same feelings as any one character in her book.
It’s clear that she had some strong feelings about the depravities and inequalities that society placed upon women in general, and I think that’s a consistent theme in her book, so we can definitely say that. In this particular case, was Jane in agreement with Charles that looking after a sick child was the mother’s job? Let’s listen to what Mary and Anne have to say about this.
“So you and I are to be left to shift by ourselves, with this poor sick child; and not a creature coming near us all the evening! I knew how it would be. This is always my luck. If there is anything disagreeable going on men are always sure to get out of it, and Charles is as bad as any of them. Very unfeeling! I must say it is very unfeeling of him to be running away from his poor little boy. Talks of his being going on so well! How does he know that he is going on well, or that there may not be a sudden change half an hour hence? I did not think Charles would have been so unfeeling. So here he is to go away and enjoy himself, and because I am the poor mother, I am not to be allowed to stir; and yet, I am sure, I am more unfit than anybody else to be about the child. My being the mother is the very reason why my feelings should not be tried. I am not at all equal to it. You saw how hysterical I was yesterday.”
“But that was only the effect of the suddenness of your alarm—of the shock. You will not be hysterical again. I dare say we shall have nothing to distress us. I perfectly understand Mr Robinson’s directions, and have no fears; and indeed, Mary, I cannot wonder at your husband. Nursing does not belong to a man; it is not his province. A sick child is always the mother’s property: her own feelings generally make it so.” Persuasion, Chapter 7
Obviously Anne Elliot, who’s our protagonist, is in agreement with Charles that it is the mother’s purview to take care of a sick child. We’re going to see an interesting distinction about Anne’s views about nursing as a profession versus nursing as a domestic act when we look at Nurse Rooke later on in the book.
One of the interesting things about Mary is that she’s a hypochondriac, and many people think that this is based a little bit on Jane Austen’s mother, who was also a notorious hypochondriac. However, Mary’s views towards children, here we diverge, because everything we know about Mrs. Austen, and we don’t know a ton, but we do know that she loved her children, and that Jane and Mrs. Austen were pretty close.
While it’s probably unsafe to draw conclusions about Jane Austen’s personal views based on her characters’ views, I think we could probably say that Anne’s feelings about what makes a dutiful mother are a reflection, a little bit, of Jane Austen’s own relationship with her mother.
Apothecaries
The second thing I want to talk about today, and we’re going to talk about this a bit in depth, is about apothecaries. Let’s go back a little bit and listen to a clip about when the apothecary shows up to examine little Charles.
Her brother’s return was the first comfort; he could take best care of his wife; and the second blessing was the arrival of the apothecary. Till he came and had examined the child, their apprehensions were the worse for being vague; they suspected great injury, but knew not where; but now the collar-bone was soon replaced, and though Mr Robinson felt and felt, and rubbed, and looked grave, and spoke low words both to the father and the aunt, still they were all to hope the best, and to be able to part and eat their dinner in tolerable ease of mind Persuasion, Chapter 7
Mr. Robinson, the apothecary. Let’s talk about apothecaries.
First of all, the term apothecary means different things in different cultures. It’s a common Latin root, and so you’ll see it used in a lot of different languages. In Regency era and Victorian era England, the title apothecary, and the rights and responsibilities of an apothecary, had a big shift. From the 1700s on through the late 1800s, we see a big change. Even within the context of the novels that Jane Austen wrote, you will likely see apothecaries behaving and being treated differently.
First of all, during this time period, there are three types of medical professionals. We had physicians, then surgeons, and then last, the lowly apothecary.
Physicians had the distinction of being treated like gentlemen. They were licensed, they had to go to university, they had to study in Latin. In fact, most of their studies came exclusively from old Latin textbooks. However, physicians, even though they were the highest ranked and most respected, were in general considered gentlemen; they did not do any kind of physical examination. Because again, as we talked about a few chapters ago, to do any type of physical labor disqualified you for the rank of gentlemen.
We have physicians looking at people, hearing a list of their ailments, maybe doing a couple of labs, and then saying, “I’m pretty sure you’ve got this illness, based on my studying of 17th century Latin textbooks.”
Next we had surgeons. Surgeons were the ones who would do physical exams. They would cut you open and do things like that.
Then we have apothecaries. Apothecaries were, at this time period, essentially completely unregulated. Anyone could be an apothecary. Even women could be apothecaries. Over time, this evolved, and by the time we get into the Victorian age, apothecaries are more heavily regulated.
One of the big distinctions, aside from the fact that physicians would not do physical exams, is that apothecaries could not charge for medical advice. They could only charge for medicine. This becomes an issue, and you’ll see this in the novels, because what will happen is a family will send for an apothecary, and the apothecary will make a diagnosis, but they can’t charge for that. They will almost universally prescribe some type of medicine, because that’s the only way they could get paid.
Physicians, on the other hand, would charge for their advice and for doing a diagnosis, a process which was called physic. Then, if they thought you needed medicine, they would send you to the apothecary to get it, because they couldn’t sully their hands mixing their own medicines. That was labor, or tradesman work.
The Case of William Rose
We see a big shift here taking place in the early 1700s. In 1703, there was an apothecary named William Rose, and he was charged essentially for malpractice by one of his patients and brought to court. The crux of the suit was that not only was he prescribing medicine, but he was administering physic, which is to say he was giving medical advice and administering a diagnosis. He was found guilty, but the Society of Apothecaries appealed.
This becomes interesting, because there’s a lot of historical tension leading up to this point. Because physicians, as we said, were seen as the upper class of the medical ranks, and they were regarded as gentlemen. They were educated in universities, et cetera. Many said, because of this higher rankingness, that they were out of reach of the poor, either economically, because they charged too much, or geographically, because as gentlemen, they tended to reside only in large cities, especially in London. Also, during the 1600s, they infamously fled London during the plague, and then later during the Great Fire of London, and that left apothecaries to have to fill in the role of physicians, because they were the only ones left.
Meanwhile, the apothecaries didn’t require any formal training or licensure. Since they could only make money by administering medicines, the Royal College of Physicians argued that the apothecaries charged too much, and they overprescribed, and that many of the cases that they oversaw would be better handled by family and neighbors through some type of self-care.
Apothecaries in general were sometimes viewed, especially in the city, as charlatans, because many apothecaries marketed dubious medicines that they had invented themselves, and some of them were rather harmful. A lot of people think that this particular apothecary, William Rose, who did have such a medicine, was being—because you have to understand that apothecaries were the general country doctor for most people. It was out of people’s economic and geographic ability to find a licensed physician in most parts of the country. Apothecaries were always making diagnoses and giving advice. William Rose was not the first or the last to do this.
Many people think that he was being held up as an example of, here’s an evil apothecary infringing on the licensed physician territory, and he’s marketing illegal drugs that are harmful, etc. Anyway, he lost the case, but then he won the appeal, or rather the Society of Apothecaries won the appeal on his behalf.
The consequence of the appeal was that apothecaries, from this point on, from 1705 onward, were allowed to give medical advice, legally allowed to do it, but they still couldn’t charge for it. You see this shift, where apothecaries previously were like retail shops where they would give medicine. Now they are making house calls more and more, providing medicine during the house call, and that’s how they’re making their living. They evolve from the neighborhood apothecary shop, essentially, into a general practitioner that does house calls. That’s the kind of state that Mr. Robinson is in during this time period of the novel.
Chemists and Druggists
The other consequence of this is that as apothecaries left the retail space, a new trade shows up. Chemists and druggists appear on the scene during this era to fill that gap.
What’s ironic is that they set up shops and they’re dispensing medicines, and the physicians are sending their patients to these chemists and druggists. The apothecaries are starting to get a little upset about this, because now you’ve got this other group of tradesmen who are infringing on their turf. Which is ironic, because that’s the same charge the physicians had against the apothecaries.
Another consequence of this is that over time, more and more apothecaries felt like they needed some kind of professional licensure, to protect themselves from allegations of malpractice and dubious business practices. The Apothecary Act of 1815 was passed, and this required apothecaries to undergo formal apprenticeships.
However, the quality and rigor of the apprenticeships varied quite a bit, as you might imagine. If you were an apothecary apprenticing in London, you would have a much different experience and set of rules to go by than if you were apprenticing from the local village apothecary in some rural community far from society. Then the chemists and druggists eventually came under some regulations of their own. The Pharmaceuticals Acts of 1852 and 1868 also brought them under regulation.
The point here is that from the 1700s until 1815, you see a big change in what the term apothecary means, and what they’re allowed to do, what they’re required to do in order to be an apothecary. In fact, pretty famously, John Keats, who is the famous poet, was an apothecary, and he did go through an apprenticeship and licensure, and actually studied through a university program after 1815. He was required to go through more formal training.
Conclusion
That wraps up this episode of My Cousin Jane. As always, if you enjoy the show and would like to help support us, please consider clicking the little donate button or subscribing to our newsletter. Either way, thanks so much for listening.
