The Eye of God

by Paul Doherty

  Mistress Swinbrooke’s profession as an apothecary and physician is also accurate. In the first novel of the series I pointed out that women physicians were even hired by the royal family whilst, during the same period that Kathryn lived, the nuns at Syon on the Thames were establishing themselves as the finest surgeons and physicians in Europe. As N. V. Lyons wrote in his Medicine in the Medieval World (Macmillan Education, 1984): ‘As early as the 11th century, women are known to have practised medicine.’ It was only when the practice of medicine was regulated by Act of Parliament in 1521 that women were deprived of this important role.

  P. C. Doherty

  (C. L. GRACE)