During the course of the eighteenth century, traditional healers remained active, drawing on folk knowledge about the curative properties of roots, herbs, and other plants. Faith healing also remained popular, especially in the countryside. In the larger towns and cities, apothecaries sold a vast number of herbs, drugs, and patent medicines.

Physicians, who were invariably men, were apprenticed in their teens to practicing physicians for several years of on-the-job training. This training was then rounded out with hospital work or some university courses. Because their training was expensive, physicians came mainly from prosperous families and they usually concentrated on urban patients from similar social backgrounds. Nevertheless, even poor people spent hard-won resources to seek treatment for their loved ones. Physicians in the eighteenth century were increasingly willing to experiment with new methods, but time-honored practices lay heavily on them.