The Physicians Take Over:
The 1700s

By the 1700s, the clergy were increasingly deferring to physicians' expertise in treating Os and Cs. Physicians did their best to help OCD sufferers but they simply did not have many tools available to them. They used the tools they had.

Early illustration of phlebotomy

Hannah Allen described how her doctor used bloodletting (also called phlebotomy) to treat her obsessive "bad" thoughts.¹ This widely-used technique involved draining blood from the patient in an effort to adjust the bodily "humors."

An astrological healer named Richard Napier (1559-1634) attempted to cure a woman's washing compulsion by plotting the celestial sphere.²

Physician John Woodward treated obsessions using enemas

One woman with a harm obsession (distressing thoughts of harming her child) was treated with laxatives and enemas—and her physician, John Woodward (1665-1728), claimed that the treatment cured her.³

Physicians of the 1700s and 1800s described many types of Os and Cs, including compulsive washing,⁴ compulsive checking,⁵ obsessive fear of syphilis,⁶ harm obsessions,⁷ and "responsibility" obsessions.⁸ Fewer religious Os and Cs were reported than in earlier centuries.⁹

The shift to a primarily medical understanding of Os and Cs had consequences for OCD sufferers. The most dramatic consequence was the increasing institutionalization of OCD sufferers in "lunatic asylums."

¹Hannah Allen (1683). The medical profession considered individuals with Os and Cs to be suffering from "melancholy." To cure this condition, bloodletting was used to adjust the body's "humors." Today, melancholy means sad or "blue," but back then it had a different meaning.

²Richard Napier (early 1600s).

³John Woodward (1716).

⁴William Hammond (1879).

⁵J.E.D. Esquirol (1838).

⁶Daniel Turner (1724).

⁷John Woodward (1716); also see the description in Felix Platter (1602).

⁸Henri Le Grand du Saulle (1875).

⁹More on whether the content of Os and Cs has changed over the centuries.