Medical Consulting by Letter in France, 1665–1789.
Title:
Medical Consulting by Letter in France, 1665–1789.
Author:
Weston, Robert.
ISBN:
9781409452188
Personal Author:
Physical Description:
1 online resource (241 pages)
Series:
The History of Medicine in Context
Contents:
Cover -- Contents -- List of Tables -- Notes on the Text -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- Background -- Methodology -- Terms and Concepts -- Structure -- Part I Contexts: Textual, Professional and Social -- 1 Correspondence: Practices and Context -- Survey and Collection Techniques -- The Manuscript Sources -- Printed Consultations -- The Structure of Medical Correspondence -- The Veracity of Printed Sources -- The Practitioners of Medical Correspondence -- Epistolary Consultations as Reflections of Medical Practice -- 2 The Dynamic Medical Marketplace -- Defining the Boundaries between Physicians and Surgeons -- Surgeons and their Roles -- The Roles of Paramedicals -- The Presence of Empirics and Charlatans -- The Cost of Medical Treatment -- 3 Relationships between Medical Correspondents -- Family Involvement in Medical Correspondence -- Hereditary Disorders -- A Case Study of Venereal Diseases -- Gender-based Distinctions -- 4 Knowledge, Status and Power: Negotiating Authority -- Establishing Authority -- Inter-practitioner Authority -- Negotiating Diagnoses -- Negotiating Treatments -- Part II Body, Health and Illness -- 5 University Medical Knowledge in Epistolary Practice -- The Longevity of the Hippocratic-Galenic Curriculum -- Alternative Theories, Iatrochemistry and Iatromechanics -- Driving the Machine -- Debates about Nosography and Nosology -- The Learned View of Pathology, Illness and its Diagnosis -- Evidence of Diagnosis and Prognosis -- 6 Patients' Perceptions of the Body, Health and Illness -- Perceptions of Health and Disease -- Patients' Rhetoric -- Patients in Pain -- Describing the Body -- The Perception of Death -- Patient Knowledge -- Hypochondria: Patient Perceptions and Practitioner Advice -- 7 The Deployment of Therapies -- Phlebotomy Revisited -- Medicinal Therapies -- Imbibing Mineral Waters -- Bathing.
The Materia Medica -- Lifestyle and Diet -- Self-medication -- 8 From Complaint to Cure -- Epilepsy - Examining Therapeutic Options and Rationales -- Therapeutic Efficacy -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Index.
Abstract:
Ailing seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French men and women, members of their families, or their local physician or surgeon, could write to high profile physicians and surgeons seeking expert medical advice. This study, the first full-length examination of the practice of consulting by letter, provides a cohesive portrayal of some of the widespread ailments of French society in the latter part of the early modern period. It explores how and why changes occurred in the relationships between those who sought and those who provided medical advice. Previous studies of epistolary medical consulting have limited attention to the output of one or two practitioners, but this study uses the consultations of around 100 individual practitioners from the mid-seventeenth century to the time of the Revolution to give a broad picture of patients and physicians perceptions of illnesses and how they should be treated on a day-to-day basis. It makes a unique contribution to the history of medicine, as no other study has been undertaken in the consulting by letter of surgeons, as opposed to physicians. It is shown that the well-known disputation between physicians and surgeons tells only a part of the history; whereas in fact, necessity required that these two 'professions' had to work together for the patients' good.
Local Note:
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2017. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.
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Electronic Access:
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