General pharmacology in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is considered (Parts 1 and 2). Reference is made to some criticisms of the contemporary materia medica and to early attempts at a scientific investigation of drugs and poisons. The studies of vegetable drugs by Stoerk and Withering are discussed to illustrate the problems associated with pharmaco-dynamic studies in clinical practice. Part 3 describes the experiments with drugs arid poisons carried out in the eighteenth century. Particular reference is made to experimental studies of cherry laurel, arrow-poisons, viper venom and opium. The influence of this work on the history of experimental pharmacology is considered in a discussion concerning the recognition of animal experiments as a valid contribution to pharmacology and human medicine. In Part 4 the factors contributing to advances in posology are discussed with particular reference to experimental studies and to the isolation of active constituents of drugs. Part is concerned with the development of knowledge concerning the mode of action of drugs and poisons, in particular with the problem of the manner in which a substance can affect an organ situated at a distance from the site of administration. These sections of the thesis include a study of the work of some investigators in the early nineteenth century with particular reference to some early researches by François Magendie.

The suggestion is put forward that the apothecary of the period is under valued and that his true worth to the science of his day and to his community has been incorrectly assessed by medical historians. In this re-assessment the genesis of the apothecary and his relationship with other branches of medicine are described. His own contribution to the development of the general practitioner, pharmacist, and chemist is examined, as is his scientific contribution to the emerging disciplines of botany and chemistry as well as to medicine itself. The problem of determining the type of work in which the apothecary of the day, in both London and the provinces, was engaged is discussed and a tentative conclusion drawn as to how it changed during the course of the century. His educational standards and the opportunities he had to obtain this education are important to the realisation of the apothecary's position, and some idea is garnered from contemporary letters and memoranda. The necessity for self-education is pointed out, which happily often resulted' in many apothecaries retaining a keen interest in spheres not directly related to the winning of 'mere bread and butter'. Monetarily his position was usually sound and an examination of the premiums paid for apprenticeship show that he belonged to the more favoured sections of the community. is status, both socially and economically, his background, associates and social life are investigated, and the lives of a number of apothecaries such as John Conyers, Thomas Bott and Lewis Dickenson, who have left us more of their documents than is usual, are examined in close detail. The conclusion is drawn that the initial hypothesis is valid.

No description available.

Ovarian surgery was a topic of considerable interest to European surgeons during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In the 1830s extirpation of the diseased ovary became the first major abdominal procedure to come into use in Britain and in 1843 the term ‘ovariotomy’ was coined to describe the procedure. Yet the operation’s ‘establishment’ was fraught with anxieties that went to the heart of surgical morality. Alternatively framed as a triumphant episode of surgical progress and a symbol of Victorian surgeons’ attempts to ‘control’ female patients with brutal and unnecessary surgery, this thesis adopts a different approach by considering what ovarian surgery can tell us about innovation. With the procedure at its centre, this thesis traces the intricacies particular to negotiating novelty in operative surgery, and how the use of ovariotomy raised significant questions regarding risk, responsibility, credit, economics and surgical language. What emerges is a history that challenges not only previous historicization of ovarian surgery, but also histories of innovation which imagine novel products as stable entities and the innovation process as one that follows a linear pattern. Ovarian surgery, on the contrary, followed no such pattern. At the heart of the debate – and at the heart of this thesis – is the question of definition. The integration of ovariotomy, I argue, was a complex process because the meaning and definition of the innovation was continually contested as the operation was repeatedly re-shaped technically, philosophically and linguistically.

Individual physicians' medical thinking is one of the aspects which has not been fully explored in the present historiography of English medicine. In this thesis, I examine the medical thought of Clifford Allbutt who was Regius Professor of Physic at Cambridge University from 1892 to 1925. He was the designer of the 3-inch thermometer that we use today and was an advocate of the use of the ophthalmoscope in general medicine, the integration of medicine with surgery and the basic sciences, the physiological concept of disease, and comparative pathology. I argue that all these projects were concerted efforts to make medicine a biological science and they were guided by Allbutt's physiological and biological thinking. I examine Allbutt's medical thinking under three headings: (1) medical generalism, (2) the concept of disease, and (3) comparative pathology. In chapter two, I discuss how Allbutt attempted to make late nineteenth-century English clinical medicine an on-going research enterprise, through his own experience in ophthalmic and thermometric research. In chapter three, I discuss Allbutt's protest against the divorce of physic and surgery and his advocacy of the hospital unit system. My discussions in these two chapters will explain Allbutt's medical generalism. Chapter four looks at Allbutt's criticism of the concept of disease as a morbid entity and his argument for the physiological notion. I explore the historical background of Allbutt's view and explain how he used history to support his claims. Chapter five is devoted to Allbutt's advocacy of comparative pathology. I explain Allbutt's criticism of what he called 'anthropocentric medicine' and discuss how he integrated medicine and biology with an evolutionist framing of comparative pathology. Through my discussion, Allbutt's achievements can be understood in a new light and I also aim to complement the received image of scientific medicine with a more biologically focused character.

This thesis reassesses the workings of the Anatomy Act (1832) in East Anglia throughout the nineteenth century. Underpinning the practice of medical education was the need to acquire human corpses to permit the essential study of anatomy. Over the course of the century the source of anatomical material moved from bodies taken from their graves by bodysnatchers to unclaimed pauper corpses from workhouses and hospitals to the increasing use of the cadavers of lunatics from the vast Victorian asylums. The accepted view of the Anatomy Act is that it stopped bodysnatching but failed to ensure a plentiful supply of cadavers. Whilst recent research has largely focused on specific changes in Poor Law legislation or the impact of the reorganisation of medical curricula on the supply of corpses, this study widens the debate by identifying seven groups; bodysnatchers, teachers of anatomy, medical students, inspectors of anatomy, paupers, guardians and those who elected them to office and examines their respective parts in attempting to solve the perennial problem of the shortage of corpses for dissection. The shifting locus of power between the groups is examined with reference to external changes which were brought to bear on their relationships. Cambridge Medical School is used as a case study to highlight the difficulties provincial schools experienced in obtaining dissection material and to indicate how, in this particular case, they were solved by the actions of determined individuals resulting in Cambridge becoming one of the most successful medical schools in the country by the end of the nineteenth century. This research contributes to the small, but growing, number of regional studies which are necessary to enable us to gain an overview of the effect of the Anatomy Act on the study of medicine across Britain in the nineteenth century.

It has frequently been suggested that, historically, science and religion react together in a state of conflict. Three areas of medical development have been studied to determine the nature of such conflict in this field where, in particular, its existence has been alleged. The introduction into Europe of inoculation for smallpox, about 1720, seems to have been met by religious objections from some hyper-Calvinist sources - particularly in Scotland - but this opposition had almost disappeared by the 19th century, and it did not recur on the introduction of cowpox vaccination by Jenner in 1798. Obstetric anaesthesia is commonly said to have stimulated massive religious opposition when it was introduced in 1847. Evidence of such opposition in contemporary sources has proved to be virtually non-existent, however, and it appears that this 'conflict' is a myth, based upon a defence prepared by James Young Simpson of Edinburgh against an attack which never materialized. The value given to the life of unborn children was a source of genuine conflict between the medical profession - which regarded the fetus as disposable - and the Roman Catholic church - which regarded all life as valuable, even that of the unborn. Debates occurred over induced abortion, embryotomy, and the caesarian operation -a means of saving the child which the catholic church supported, but surgeons regarded as unacceptably dangerous for the mother. These differences continued until-well into the present century. It is concluded that, while occasional specific disputes have occurred, there is no evidence of any general 'warfare' between medicine and religion, and that such a conflict is merely an historiographical artifact based upon past failures to study the historical evidence sufficiently closely.

No description available.

No description available.

In both Britain and the United States, the interwar years witnessed the formation of a new organized movement for birth control; in both contexts, sharing a commitment to extend the provision of clinical contraception to the working-class and indigent population. This comparative thesis examines the organizational ideology and activity of the associations founded by the birth control pioneers, Marie Stopes, and Margaret Sanger. In considering the ideological constructions of contemporaneous motherhood advanced by the two groups, I seek to reposition the Anglo-American birth control movements within the wider field of social reform. Examining the influences of maternalist politics, the eugenics crusade, the developing field of social work, and the medical hierarchy in shaping the visions of maternity employed in birth control discourse, the study considers both the contrasting and convergent interpretations utilized by the organizations in their campaigns for contraception. This thesis also explores the practical work of the organizations during the interwar decades, analysing the policies and internal politics of the two groups, coalitions with other reform groups, their respective roles within the wider national and international birth control movements, and the effects engendered by the move from lay activism to professionalism. The clinical networks established by both associations are also examined, considering the divergences and similarities in the models of clinic provision, the roles of medical providers, and results of birth control in practice. I contend that, in both their ideological interpretations, alliances, and practical endeavours, the two associations shared a common vision of transitioning clinical contraception from the radical associations of the past, towards a new respectability as a legitimate medical technique and form of social welfare provision.