Medical Fringe and Medical Orthodoxy 1750-1850 PDF
Preview Medical Fringe and Medical Orthodoxy 1750-1850
ROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Volume 1 MEDICAL FRINGE AND MEDICAL ORTHODOXY 1750–1850 MEDICAL FRINGE AND MEDICAL ORTHODOXY 1750–1850 Edited by W. F. BYNUM AND ROY PORTER Firstpublishedin1987byCroomHelmLtd Thiseditionfirstpublishedin2019 byRoutledge 2ParkSquare,MiltonPark,Abingdon,OxonOX144RN andbyRoutledge 52VanderbiltAvenue,NewYork,NY10017 RoutledgeisanimprintoftheTaylor&FrancisGroup,aninforma business ©1987W.F.BynumandRoyPorter Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereprintedor reproducedorutilisedinanyformorbyanyelectronic,mechanical, orothermeans,nowknownorhereafterinvented,including photocopyingandrecording,orinanyinformationstorageor retrievalsystem,withoutpermissioninwritingfromthepublishers. Trademarknotice:Productorcorporatenamesmaybetrademarksor registeredtrademarks,andareusedonlyforidentificationand explanationwithoutintenttoinfringe. BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary ISBN:978-1-138-39006-5(Set) ISBN:978-0-429-02175-6(Set)(ebk) ISBN:978-1-138-39128-4(Volume1)(hbk) ISBN:978-0-429-42274-4(Volume1)(ebk) Publisher’sNote Thepublisherhasgonetogreatlengthstoensurethequalityofthis reprintbutpointsoutthatsomeimperfectionsintheoriginalcopies maybeapparent. Disclaimer Thepublisherhasmadeeveryefforttotracecopyrightholdersand wouldwelcomecorrespondencefromthosetheyhavebeenunableto trace. MEDICAL FRINGE &.. MEDICAL ORTHODOXY 1750-1850 Edited by W.F. Bynum and Roy Porter CROOM HELM London • Sydney • Wolfeboro, New Hampshire © 1987 W.F. Bynum and Roy Porter Croom Helm Ltd, Provident House, Burrell Row, Beckenham, Kent BR3 !AT Croom Helm Australia Pty Ltd, Suite 4, 6th Floor, 64-76 Kippax Street, Surry Hills, NSW 2010, Australia British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Medical fringe and medical orthodoxy 1750-1850. (Well come Institute series in the history of medicine) 1. Medicine-History- 18th century 2. Medicine- History - 19th century I. Bynum, W.F. II. Porter, Roy, 1946- Ill. Series 610'.9'033 R148 ISBN 0-7099-3959-0 Croom Helm US, 27 South Main Street. Wolfeboro. New Hampshire 03894-2069 Library of Congress Cat!lloging-in-Publication Data Medical fringe and medical orthodoxy. (The Wellcome Institute series in the history of medicine) "Many of the papers in this volume were first presented at a one-day Symposium on Medical Orthodoxy and Medical Fringe held at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine on 15 February 1985" - Acknowledgements. I. Quacks and quackery - Social aspects -·History - 18th century - Congresses. 2. Quacks and quackery - Social aspects - History - 19th century - Congresses. 3. Social medicine - History - 18th century - Congresses. 4. Social medicine-History- 19th century -Congresses. 5. Medicine- History- 18th century-Congresses. 6. Medicine - History - 19th century - Congresses. I. Bynum. W.F. (William F.). 1943- 11. Porter. Roy. 1946- Ill. Symposium on Medical Orthodoxy and Medical Fringe (1985: Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine) IV. Series. [DNLM: I. History of Medicine. Modem - congresses. 2. Quackery - history - congresses. 3. Therapeutic Cults - history - congresses. WB 900 M489J R730.M46 1987 362.1'09'033 86-19641 ISBN 0-7099-3959-0 Printed and bound in Great Britain by Mackays of Chatham Ltd, Kent CONTENTS Acknowledgements vi Introduction 1. Treating the Wages of Sin: Venereal Disease and Specialism in Eighteenth-century Britain 5 W.F. Bynum 2. Publicity and the Public Good: Presenting Medicine in Eighteenth-century Bristol 29 Jonathan Barry 3. Orthodoxy and Fringe: Medicine in Late Georgian Bristol 40 Michael Neve 4. 'I Think Ye Both Quacks': The Controversy between Dr Theodor Myersbach and Dr John Coakley Lettsom 56 Roy Porter 5. Property Rights and the Right to Health: The Regulation of Secret Remedies in France, 1789-1815 79 Matthew Ramsey 6. 'The Vile Race of Quacks with which this Country is Infested' 106 Irvine Loudon 7. The Orthodox Fringe: The Origins of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain 129 S. W. F. Holloway 8. Bones of Contention? Orthodox Medicine and the Mystery of the Bone-setter's Craft 158 Roger Cooter 9. PhysiCal Puritanism and Sanitary Science: Material and .. Immaterial Beliefs in Popular Physiology, 1650-1840 174 Virginia Smith 10. Early Victorian Radicals and the Medical Fringe 198 J.F. C. Harrison I 1. Social Context and Medical Theory in the Demarcation of Nineteenth-century Boundaries 216 P.S. Brown 12. Medical Sectarianism, Therapeutic Conflict, and the Shaping of Orthodox Professional Identity in Antebellum American Medicine 234 John Harley Warner Index 261 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many of the papers in this volume were first presented at a one-day sym posium on 'Medical Orthodoxy and Medical Fringe' held at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine on 15 February 1985. The generous support of the Wellcome Trustees made possible that symposium and, in a very real sense, this book as well. INTRODUCTION Few medical historians today would argue that regular medicine and fringe medicine have had their own autonomous histories, developing as completely distinct separate species, the one (in the eyes of its friends) scientific, professional, effective, or (in the eyes of its opponents) monopolistic and authoritarian; the other (according to some) vulgar, cranky and dangerous, or (to others) natural, democratic, harmless. The days of such 'saints and sinners' histories are over. Scholars of all stripes agree nowadays that-to a greater or lesser degree-the frontiers bet ween orthodox and unorthodox medicine have been flexible; indeed, the very distinction between the two is one that has been socially constructed. So mobile have been their boundaries, that one age's quackery has often become another's orthodoxy, or vice versa. Thus, plotting the territorial shifts, gains and losses for 'proper' and 'improper' medicine, is acknowledged to be a task requiring the social historian. But if it is generally accepted that regular and irregular medicine have dialectically interacted within the larger social whole, it is curious how each continues to be studied on its own. Most of the best social history or historical sociology of medical developments since the Industrial Revolution has looked at the operation of professionalisation and modern isation within orthodox medicine; and so we now have admirable studies, for example, of the tensions between physicians and apothecaries or the relations between the profession and Parliament. At the same time the medical sects have also found their historians, especially amongst scholars concerned with working-class and labour history. These two genres of research have established themselves, but very little has been published which links and straddles them. To do that is the aim of this book. In it the dozen contributors have provided a series of studies examining how the relations between regular and irregular medicine have been constituted in particular fields at par ticular times. In some cases, they complement each other, and their rela tions are amicable; in others, there is deep conflict. Sometimes we see the isomorphisms, in others the differences between 'insider' and 'out sider' medicine stand out most. Examining how 'high' and 'low' medicine came to adopt their own identities through conflict and competition with each other is a particularly important feature of these analyses. For arguably, it was the hundred years covered by this book (the mid-
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