Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Book Reviews

Book Reviews M. PELLING, Medical Conflicts in Early Modern London: Patronage, Physicians, and Irreg- ular Practitioners, 1550-1640. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2003. xiv+410 pages, 13 figures, 15 tables, index. ISBN 0199257809. £65.00 Hardback. Physicians have often looked like the archetypal early professionals: members of an estate of learning, bound by a tradition of honour. The polar opposite of the unli- censed quacks of medieval and early modern England, they provide the basis for the modern institution of professional medicine. By rights, the College of Physicians of London, founded in 1518, the foremost medical corporation in early modern England, should demonstrate the progress of professionalization and modernisa- tion. The collegiate physicians, a body of self-consciously humanist, middling sort practitioners, were responsible for defining what medicine was to become. Part of Margaret Pelling's achievement in this book is to point out how one-sided such a story would be. The College of Physicians defined itself very largely through exclusions, and the process of exclusion involved disputes and inconsistencies. Between quacks and physicians stood a long line of medical practitioners, male and female, more or less educated, from a range of backgrounds. The College's attempts to establish a narrow definition of what medicine was depended http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png The London Journal: A Review of Metropolitan Society Past and Present Taylor & Francis

Book Reviews

Download PDF
24 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/taylor-francis/book-reviews-MqZy48PYmf

References

References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.

Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Copyright
© 2004 Maney Publishing
ISSN
1749-6322
eISSN
0305-8034
DOI
10.1179/ldn.2004.29.1.89
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

M. PELLING, Medical Conflicts in Early Modern London: Patronage, Physicians, and Irreg- ular Practitioners, 1550-1640. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2003. xiv+410 pages, 13 figures, 15 tables, index. ISBN 0199257809. £65.00 Hardback. Physicians have often looked like the archetypal early professionals: members of an estate of learning, bound by a tradition of honour. The polar opposite of the unli- censed quacks of medieval and early modern England, they provide the basis for the modern institution of professional medicine. By rights, the College of Physicians of London, founded in 1518, the foremost medical corporation in early modern England, should demonstrate the progress of professionalization and modernisa- tion. The collegiate physicians, a body of self-consciously humanist, middling sort practitioners, were responsible for defining what medicine was to become. Part of Margaret Pelling's achievement in this book is to point out how one-sided such a story would be. The College of Physicians defined itself very largely through exclusions, and the process of exclusion involved disputes and inconsistencies. Between quacks and physicians stood a long line of medical practitioners, male and female, more or less educated, from a range of backgrounds. The College's attempts to establish a narrow definition of what medicine was depended

Journal

The London Journal: A Review of Metropolitan Society Past and Present – Taylor & Francis

Published: May 1, 2004

There are no references for this article.