Historical research on the practices of care and assistance in witchcraft trials held at Poschiavo (CH) between 1631 and 1753 (2023)
Stefano Giorgetta (Author)
Edoardo Manzoni (Author)
Maura Lusignani (Author)
Medicina Historica
Volume: 7
Issue: 1
Pages: 1-11
Val Poschiavo provides the context, shown to have been the location of numerous trials against witches in the post-Tridentine period, recognised as representing a crucial era for the history of medicine and of assistance, inevitably linked to the history of nursing care. Assistance should be considered in this period within the domestic settings of the populace, during which women exercised their caring practice. The purpose of the research is to highlight the link between the witch hunting period in the context of Val Poschiavo and the history of assistance, comparing gestures of assistance and care of women accused of witchcraft to modern-day basic nursing care. The trial records of 51 women accused of witchcraft between 1631 and 1753 are examined and analysed using historical research methodology. Overall, 111 gestures have emerged. These were divided into gestures of care (n=51) and gestures of assistance (n=60), expressed through feeding, touch, physical proximity, words, knowledge/competence, the look and usage of herbs. The results allow us to associate some women accused of witchcraft with caring women and establish useful groundwork to consider the meaning of nursing actions, with explicit reference to the Fundamentals of Care, the expression of a memory perhaps forgotten, but in human terms essential and indispensable.
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