This is a unique history of French medicine between the sixteenth century and the French Revolution. Brockliss focuses on physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries, providing an overview of long-term changes in their ideas about medicine and their craft. But he also discusses other denizens of the medical world-- quacks, charlatans, wise women, midwives, herbalist and others--setting them within the broader context of social, economic, demographic, and cultural change.