Mary Trye (born 1642) was a woman who practiced medicine in Warwickshire, England and the city of London, in an era when women were not permitted to become licensed physicians.[1]

Little is known about Trye or her life. She was baptized as Mary Dowde on July 30, 1642; was married in 1660 to a merchant, Edward Stanthwaite; was widowed; and in 1670 married Berkeley Trye, with whom she had a son, William, in 1671.[2]

In 1675, she published Medicatrix, Or The Woman-Physician,a defense of her father, Thomas O'Dowde, who died caring for patients during the Great Plague of London, and whose practice she continued.[3] in Medicatrix she asserted her right to write and publish.[4] She defended the practice of iatrochemistry as opposed to the Galenic approach supported by the official Royal College of Physicians.[2][5][6] Her medical philosophy was influenced by Jan Baptist Van Helmont.[7]

References edit

  1. ^ Cook, Harold J. (23 September 2004). ""Mary Trye"". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/45830. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. ^ a b Read, Sara (1 September 2016). ""My Method and Medicines": Mary Trye, Chemical Physician" (PDF). Early Modern Women. 11 (1): 137–148. doi:10.1353/emw.2016.0048. ISSN 1933-0065. S2CID 79376248.
  3. ^ Ostovich, Helen; Sauer, Elizabeth; Sauer, Professor of English Elizabeth; Smith, Melissa (2004). Reading Early Modern Women: An Anthology of Texts in Manuscript and Print, 1550-1700. Psychology Press. ISBN 978-0-415-96646-7.
  4. ^ Trye, Mary (1675). Medicatrix, Or, The Woman-Physician. London: Printed By T.R. and N.T. and sold by Henry Broome. pp. A2.
  5. ^ Whaley, L. (8 February 2011). Women and the Practice of Medical Care in Early Modern Europe, 1400-1800. Springer. ISBN 978-0-230-29517-9.
  6. ^ English women's voices, 1540-1700. Internet Archive. Miami : Florida International University Press. 1992. ISBN 978-0-8130-1083-0.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  7. ^ Clairhout, Isabelle (8 September 2014). "Erring from Good Huswifry? The Author as Witness in Margaret Cavendish and Mary Trye". Renaissance and Reformation. 37 (2): 81–114. doi:10.33137/rr.v37i2.21811. ISSN 2293-7374. S2CID 171866511.