Bad Medicine - Doctors Doing Harm since Hippocrates - D. Wootton (Oxford, 2006) WW

321 Pages·2006·6.25 MB·English

BA D M E D I C I N E

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BAD MEDICINE

DOCTORS DOING HARM
SINCE HIPPOCRATES

DAVID WOOTTON

1

3

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp
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© David Wootton, 2006

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First published 2006

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Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk
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ISBN 0–19–280355–7
978–0–19–280355–9

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

For Alison Mark and Lisa Wootton

It is interesting and indeed pathetic to observe how long a
discovery of priceless value to humanity may be hidden away,
or rather lie openly revealed, before the final and apparently
obvious step is taken towards its practical application.
(John Tyndall, 1881)

The lancet was the magician’s wand of the dark ages of
medicine.
(Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1882)

. . . only the most dyed-in-the-wool Whig history still polar-
izes the past in terms of confrontations between saints and
sinners, heroes and villains.
(Roy Porter, 1989)

. . . by 1700 there was available theoretical and observational
evidence which should have made possible the formulation of
our modern germ-theory of disease.
(Charles-Edward Amory Winslow, 1943)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Alison Mark first suggested this project. Katharine Reeve commis-
sioned it. Luciana O’Flaherty adopted it. Students at Queen Mary,
University of London, and at the University of York explored the sub-
ject with me. The University of York gave me a sabbatical in which to
write. Audiences at Birkbeck, University of London; the History of
Science Seminar in the University of Cambridge; the Department of
History in the University of York; and the National Humanities
Centre at Ralegh-Durham discussed chapters with me. Harold Cook,
Lauren Kassell, Stuart Reynolds, and Lisa Wootton read a draft, and I
am grateful for their comments. They are not responsible for my
errors, nor my failings. Nor, of course, is Alison Mark, who has kept
company with this project from beginning to end.

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CONTENTS

note on sources
xi
list of illustrations
xiii
list of tables
xv

Introduction: Bad Medicine/Better Medicine
1

I. The Hippocratic Tradition
27

1. Hippocrates and Galen
29
2. Ancient Anatomy
42
3. The Canon
49
4. The Senses
53
Conclusion to Part I: the Placebo Effect
67

II. Revolution Postponed
71

5. Vesalius and Dissection
73
6. Harvey and Vivisection
94
7. The Invisible World
110
Conclusion to Part II: Trust Not
the Physician
139

III. Modern Medicine
151

8. Counting
153
9. Birth of the Clinic
177
10. The Laboratory
185
11. John Snow and Cholera
195
12. Puerperal Fever
211
13. Joseph Lister and Antiseptic Surgery
224
14. Alexander Fleming and Penicillin
242
Conclusion to Part III: Progress Delayed
250