The dying and the doctors : the medical revolution in seventeenth-century England / Ian Mortimer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mortimer, Ian, 1967- author.

Series:

Royal Historical Society studies in history. New series.

Studies in history. New series, 0269-2244

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Medicine--England--History--17th century.

Medicine.

Medical care--England--History--17th century.

Medical care.

Public health--Social aspects--England--History.

Public health.

England--Social conditions--17th century.

England.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (232 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Other Title:

The Dying & the Doctors

Place of Publication:

Suffolk : Boydell & Brewer, 2009.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

A survey of the changes in medical care for those approaching death in the early modern period. From the sixteenth century onwards, medical strategies adopted by the seriously ill and dying changed radically, decade by decade, from the Elizabethan age of astrological medicine to the emergence of the general practitioner in the early eighteenth century. It is this profound revolution, in both medical and religious terms, as whole communities' hopes for physical survival shifted from God to the doctor, that this book charts. Drawing on more than eighteen thousand probate accounts, it identifies massive increases in the consumption of medicines and medical advice by all social groups and in almost all areas. Most importantly, it examines the role of the towns in providing medical services to rural areas and hinterlands [using the diocese of Canterbury as a particular focus], and demonstrates the extending ranges of physicians', surgeons' and apothecaries' businesses. It also identifies a comparable revolution in community nursing, from its unskilled status in 1600 to a more exclusive one by 1700. IAN MORTIMER is an independent historian and Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Exeter.

Contents:

The medicalisation of East Kent

The medicalisation of central southern England

The availability and nature of medical assistance

Medical practices

The nature and availability of nursing care

Plague and smallpox.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 02 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references (p. 215-221) and index.

ISBN:

1-282-98758-5

9786612987588

1-84615-715-3

OCLC:

705538894