Medicine in the Enlightenment / / Roy Porter.

• Superior document: Clio Medica ; 29
• TeilnehmendeR: Roy, Porter,
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden;, Boston : : Brill | Rodopi,, 1995.
• Year of Publication: 1995
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Clio Medica ; 29.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource.

The interpretation of eighteenth-century medicine has been much contested. Some have view it as a wilderness of rationalism and arid theories between the Scientific Revolution and the astonishing changes of the nineteenth-century. Other scholars have emphasized the close and fruitful links between medicine and the Enlightenment, suggesting that medical advance was the very embodiment of the philosphes ’ ideal of a practical science that would improve mankind’s lot and foster human happiness. In a series of essays covering Great Britain, France, Germany and other parts of Europe, noted historians debate these issues through detailed examinations of major aspects of eighteenth-century medicine and medical controversy, including such topics as the introduction of smallpox inoculation, the transformation of medical education, and the treatment of the insane. The essays as a whole suggest a positive reading of the transformations in eighteenth-century medicine, while stressing local diversity and uneven development.

Table of Contents

Preface -- Notes on Contributors -- Introduction -- 1. The Politics of Committal to Early Modern Bethlem -- Jonathan ANDREWS -- Medical Reform, the Enlightenment and Physician-Power in Late Eighteenth-Century France -- L.W.B. BROCKLISS -- Whose Enlightenment? Medicine, Witchcraft, Melancholia and Pathology -- Johanna GEYER-KORDESCH -- Sarah Stone, Enlightenment Midwife -- Isobel GRUNDY -- Developing Medical Expertise: Medical Practitioners and the Suspected Murders of New-Born Children -- Mark JACKSON -- Reflections on Medical Reform: Cabanis' Coup d'Œuil -- Ludmilla J. JORDANOVA -- The Enlightenment Encountered: The German Physicus and His World, 1750-1820 -- Mary LINDEMANN -- Conflicting Attitudes Towards Inoculation in Enlightenment Germany -- Andreas-Holger MAEHLE -- Honeyed Words: Bernard Mandeville and Medical Discourse -- Francis MCKEE -- Shaping Psychiatric Knowledge: The Role of the Asylum -- Roy PORTER -- Vitalism, Disease and Society -- Roselyne REY -- The Weight of Evidence and the Burden of Authority: Case Histories, Medical Statistics and Smallpox Inoculation -- Andrea A. RUSNOCK -- Methodism and Dr George Cheyne's 'More Enlightening Principles' -- David E. SHUTTLETON -- Anti-Lockean Enlightenment? Mind and Body in Early Eighteenth-Century English Medicine -- Akihito SUZUKI -- An Enlightenment Science? Surgery and the Royal Society -- Philip WILSON -- Index.