Helena Nicholls

Healing and Harming: Instruments of Surgery, Torture and Punishment in Early Modern England

Instruments that pierce, punch, tug, drill and slice the body are depicted in this beautifully, morbidly rendered Early Modern illustration. The sense of pain evoked by the visuality of these implements is acute, and their link between the living and the dead is hinted at through the skull, central to the image.

Might these 17th century implements have belonged to the corpus of tools locked away in the depths of the Tower of London - the torturous means by which the accused body was harmed in an attempt to evince veritable information about a treason plot? Or are they alternatively healing tools, material evidence to show how surgical instruments were consciously designed in this period to interact with the body as painlessly as possible?

By examining the design process, production and display of instruments of surgery, torture and punishment, this study intends to clarify the ambiguity of the Early Modern treatment of the body, revealing it to be more subtle and complex than previously considered: ranging from the utter respect and care expressed by 17th century surgeons towards the bodies of their patients, to the surprisingly non-bodily, but mind- and soul-focused application of torture, to the degradation of the body punished and treated collectively, as animal - a mere object used to heal the mass of society.

The instruments examined within this study will reveal a deeper, more tangible interpretation of the body, pain and knowledge in Early Modern English society.