'As fowle a ladie as the smale pox could make her': Facial Damage and Disfigurement in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England'.

Abstract

This thesis investigates facial damage and disfigurement in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England, with a primary emphasis upon acquired disfigurement as a result of trauma or disease. It considers facial damage and disfigurement from the perspectives of those whose own faces were affected, those who encountered others with damaged faces, and the medical practitioners who treated and wrote about facial damage. The central research questions addressed here are: what was it like to have, to see, or to treat an atypical face in early modern England? The thesis is structured so that it addresses three main aspects of this subject. The first is the medical and surgical treatment of the face, and the ways in which medical practitioners discussed the facially damaged patients whom they encountered. The second main area of research is the impact that the gendered framework of early modern society had upon responses to facial difference. The third area of research is into the role played by disgust in determining reactions to some facial damage. This section of the thesis investigates the non-visual aspects of some facial damage and the extent to which the fluids and smells produced by the damage caused by conditions such as the pox might have resulted in stigmatisation. Together, these three strands of research form a wide-ranging investigation into the experience of, and responses to, facial damage and disfigurement in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England.