Medicine Without Physicians: A History of Home Remedies

Caretaking and Childrearing

NOTE: Invalid, pronounced "in-VIL-lid," is an outdated term that appears in the History of Medicine Collections' materials. It was frequently used in the nineteenth and twentieth century as a noun, not adjective, typically to refer to people temporarily weakened by their illness or disabled from injury. It also appears as an adjective to describe someone who was removed from active service because of illness or injury. This exhibition uses the term in quotations to indicate the dated vernacular and to avoid confusion between what is reflected in the materials and the exhibition text.

Title page for the Practical Points in Nursing for Nurses in Private Practice (1896) by Emily M. A. Stoney and W. B. Saunders.
Recipe for various gruels for nurses to prepare and feed to the sick or invalid.

There are many connections between health, healing, medicine, food, and domestic work, such as caretaking and childrearing. In the past there was a greater emphasis on caretakers who undertook many responsibilities of a nurse as they had to look after sick people or "invalids."

Before the formal study of nutrition, people had made strong connections between food and health. Even when food did not serve as a form of medicine, cooking and feeding are a part of caretaking and childrearing which cannot be easily separated from health and well-being.

This guide on nursing, Practical Points in Nursing for Nurses in Private Practice (1896) contains recipes for gruels and other soft food dedicated to "invalids" and other sick persons. Semi-solid foods such as pap, gruel, and panada would commonly be served to people through specialized vessels, feeders or pap boats, that were meant to reduce spillage.

Infant, or "invalid," feeders (sometimes also called pap boats) were commonplace vessels in nineteenth and twentieth century households that provided a way to feed liquid and semi-solid food to infants or sick people. Several are on display in the physical exhibit and the History of Medicine Artifacts Collection holds a variety of them. The widespread nature of the feeders can be deduced by the varying designs and quality of the ones on display, with some exhibiting more elegant craftsmanship while others sport thick walls and few decorations.

Silver pap feeder that is shaped like a boat. Silver with gilt interior, engraved initials: JAO

Silver pap feeder, or "boat," 1774. Silver with gold gilt inside, engraved with initials JAO.

White porcelain infant or invalid feeder with floral pattern and gold that is shaped like a tea cup with a lip that covers half of its opening and a spout that emerges like a teapot spout.

White porcelain infant or invalid feeder with floral pattern and gold.

White porcelain infant or invalid feeder with a red cross within a red circle that is shaped like a tea cup with a lip that covers half of its opening and a spout that emerges like a teapot spout.

White porcelain infant or invalid feeder with a red cross on the lip and beneath its spout.

White porcelain infant or invalid feeder with a red cross within a red circle that is shaped like a tea cup with a lip that covers half of its opening and a spout that emerges like a teapot spout.
White porcelain infant or invalid feeder with a red cross within a red circle that is shaped like a tea cup with a lip that covers half of its opening and a spout that emerges like a teapot spout.

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