Fairfax's engagement in the prosecution of the Knaresborough witches stemmed from the mysterious illness of his daughter, Helen, who eventually attributed her condition to their maleficence. In Lancashire the zealous magistrate, Roger Nowell, "a very religious honest gentleman, painefull in the service of his Countrey", was moved by local rumours to launch an investigation.
Men and women concurred in suspecting Heard and Robinson of witchcraft, but female experience of their maleficence tended, not surprisingly, to concentrate on the interruption of domestic routines.
This latter case is not untypical of those involving several indictments in which the names of witnesses are listed: women formed a higher proportion of the witnesses to the charges of earlier maleficence than to those of more recent provenance.(27) One further pattern that emerges from the Home Circuit indictments may reinforce the suggestion that women were being mobilized by men, who were the driving force behind the decision to bring local suspicions and fears to the attention of the courts.
Nevertheless, the differences between clinical-pharmacological projects and the humanities and social sciences demand a specific ethical review for the latter, so that the principles of beneficence, non
maleficence, autonomy and justice are safeguarded.
He applied ethical principles to his practice: do no harm to the patient (primum non nocere), practise beneficence, refrain from
maleficence, and maintain patient confidentiality.