The major works of John Cotta : the short discovery (1612) and the trial of witchcraft (1616) / edited by Todd H. J. Pettigrew, Stephanie M. Pettigrew, Jacques A. Bailly.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cotta, John, 1575?-1650?, author.

Contributor:

Pettigrew, Stephanie M., editor.

Pettigrew, Todd H. J., 1970- editor.

Bailly, Jacques, editor.

Series:

The Renaissance Society of America 12.

The Renaissance Society of America, 2212-3091 ; Volume 12

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Physicians--England--History--17th century.

Physicians.

Cotta, John, 1575?-1650?.

Cotta, John.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (viii, 451 pages).

Place of Publication:

Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2019]

Summary:

This volume presents, for the first time, a critical edition of the works of the early modern English physician John Cotta. No mere country doctor, Cotta spoke out eloquently and courageously against what he saw as abuses in medicine and injustices in the prosecution of witchcraft. Read by important thinkers such as Robert Burton in England, and by colonial administrators in New England, Cotta helped shape two of the most important debates of his time. Included are the full texts of Cotta’s Short Discovery and The Trial of Witchcraft , both books painstakingly edited and annotated. Also included is a detailed introduction dealing with Cotta’s medical and religious contexts, his extensive learning and much more.

Contents:

Front Matter

Copyright Page

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations Used in Notes

Introduction

A Short Discovery of the Unobserved Dangers of Several Sorts of Ignorant and Unconsiderate Practicers of Physic in England

To the right honorable, right worshipful, and worthy gentlemen, my desired friends and deserving patients of Northamptonshire, honor, health and happiness of life

To the Reader

The First Book

The Introduction

Of the Empiric

Women, their custom and practice about the sick, common-visiting counselors, and commenders of medicines

Fugitives, workers of juggling wonders, quacksalvers

Surgeons

Apothecaries

Of Practicers by Spells

The explication of the true discovery of witchcraft in the sick, together with many and wondered instances of that kind

Wizards

Servants of Physicians, Ministering Helpers

The Second Book

The Methodian Learned Deceiver or Heretic Physician

Of Beneficed Practicers

Of Astrologers, Ephemerides-masters

Of Conjectors by Urine

Of Travelers

The Third Book

The True Artist, His Right Description and Election

Of the Physician’s Education

Conclusion

The Trial of Witchcraft, Showing the True and Right Method of the Discovery, with a Confutation of Erroneous Ways

To the Right Honorable Sir Edward Coke, Knight, Lord Chief Justice of England and one of his Majesty’s most honorable Privy Council and to the rest of the honorable and worthy judges

Of natural knowledge and how it is solely acquired, either by sense or reason or by artificial and prudent conjection

That no knowledge can come unto man in any art or science, but by sense or reason, or likely and artificial conjecture, is proved by the science and knowledge of physic instead of all other arts and sciences

Whether witchcraft have any other ways or means of investigation than those before mentioned and what is the true investigation

Of the works of witches and devils

The works of the Devil by himself, solely wrought without the association of man

Works done by the Devil, with respect unto covenant with man

The works of the Devil or witches manifest to reason, or consequence of reason

Of divers kinds and manners, wherein sorcerers and witches receive knowledge from spirits

Of wizards and impostors, how they differ from witches

How men may by reason and nature be satisfied, concerning such as are indeed and truly bewitched

The production of the works of witches and sorcerers, unto the public seat and censure of justice

That witches and witchcraft may be discovered by probable reason and presumption

The confutation of divers erroneous ways unto the discovery of witches, vulgarly received and approved

The casting of witches into the water, scratching, beating, pinching, and drawing of blood of witches

The exploration of witches, by supernatural revelations in the bewitched, by signs and secret marks, declared by the bewitched to be in the body of the suspected witch, by the touch of the witch curing the touched bewitched

Textual Notes

A Biographical Glossary of Figures Important in Cotta’s Major Works

Back Matter

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

90-04-37284-9

OCLC:

1065066136

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9789004372849 DOI