On Physical and Spiritual Recovery: Reconsidering the Role of Patients in Early American Restitution Narratives

This essay provides a literary history of the restitution narrative in colonial New England; using Cotton Mather's The Angel of Bethesda (1724), I argue that Puritan medical texts employ theological and medical epistemologies to enable patient agency. In these texts, individuals must be involved in reforming the sinful behaviors that they believed caused their conditions, and must also engage in a form of public health by sharing their stories so that others may avoid future sins-and therefore illnesses. Ultimately, recognizing how restitution has been historically defined allows for alternate understandings of recovery that place patients at the center.