The understanding of what health is and how it can be maintained has changed through history. Questions like who can perform healing? and what sort of bodies are considered healthy? have elicited widely divergent responses in different societies. This volume explores how health was understood and practiced in the early modern Nordic region, with a focus on Sweden, including Finland. The chapters examine topics such as the dyslexia of Charles XI, lay perceptions of bodily and mental variability, and the health benefits attributed to using the sauna. Together, the essays give a holistic view of how practices of health evolved in close symmetry with societal institutions and localised worldviews. As such, the volume is a timely intervention into the social history of medicine, contributing to the historicisation of health as a concept and shedding light on developments in the Nordic world.

Mari Eyice is a Researcher at the Department of History, Stockholm University. In her current research, she explores how emotional practices were shaped in relation to disability in the early modern period. Her publications include ‘Experiencing the dis/abled body in Early Modern Sweden: an exploration of perspectives’ (Memini: Travaux et Documents, vol. 28, 2022.
Charlotta Forss is a Researcher at the Department of History, Stockholm University. Her current research project examines how notions of health and morality were renegotiated in the early modern bathhouse culture of Sweden and Finland. Her upcoming book, Mapping the idea of North (Oxford: Bodleian Publishing, 2024) explores the connection between conceptions of climate and people on maps.

Acknowledgements
Meanings of Health in Early Modern Sweden - Charlotta Forss and Mari Eyice
Illness as Incapacity to Work in Early Modern Sweden - Anton Runesson
The Body in the Bathhouse: Health and Bathing in Early Modern Sweden - Charlotta Forss
‘Somewhat heated, quick and lively:’ Humoral Explanations of the Learning Difficulties of Charles XI of Sweden (1655–1697) - Andreas Hellerstedt
Health in Body and Soul in a female Birgittine convent 1516–1522 - Gabriela Bjarne Larsson
Curing Madness and Mental Disturbances: Religious Healing Activities in Early Modern Swedish Local Communities - Riikka Miettinen
Not Quacks but Close: Reappraising the Role of Physicians on the Eighteenth-Century Medical Market - Hjalmar Fors
Gender, Health and Hair in Sweden, 1740 – 1840 - Hedvig Widmalm
Gender Norms and Early Modern Healthcare: Barber-surgeons in Sweden c. 1600-1900 - Maria Sjöberg
Epilogue: Epistemologies of Body and Soul: Considering the Early Modern and (late) Modern History of Health - Helena Tolvhed
List of tables and figure