Power and the Professions in Britain 1700-1850 by Penelope J Corfield Penelope J. Corfield

Author:Penelope J Corfield, Penelope J. Corfield [Penelope J Corfield, Penelope J. Corfield]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General
ISBN: 9781134596362
Google: jqs-KVBg-64C
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2012-10-12T01:16:42+00:00

Figure 6.1 The Doctor too many for Death (1787). This print praises the power of the medical profession. A confident physician in wig and sword, plus gold-headed cane, wields his full syringe to repel the skeleton of Death. Meanwhile, the patient has sufficient strength to drink soup and point to his medical saviour.

Published by permission of the Wellcome Institute Library, London

Moreover, there was a continuing tradition of self-medication.33 Pills and elixirs were readily on sale, including popular opiates such as the Kendal Black Drop to which Coleridge became addicted.34 People were also helped by family and friends, while, in country villages, some grandees continued to dispense aid. Farquhar drew a fictional portrait in 1707 of the old-fashioned Lady Bountiful, busy with the ‘spreading of plaisters, brewing of diet-drinks, and stilling rosemary-water’.35 And the real-life Parson Woodforde dosed not only himself but also his niece and his servants, although at times he consulted a local doctor too.36

Because the resources available to patients were variegated, the medical profession had to earn trust in a competitive world. The famous Dr Radcliffe (1650–1714) once recommended that doctors should either cajole or bully their patients.37 But bluffness was not tyranny and even bluffness could be taken too far. The ideal manner was the discreet sympathy of a wise family friend. It took time to build up a practice and young doctors – like junior lawyers – often struggled.38 Regular church-going was one means to prove respectability: ‘I intend being there [at the Cathedral] every Sunday morning as attention of this kind is necessary in a professional man, he must accommodate himself in some degree to the manners & principles of those he expects to employ him’, decided a weary young and radical doctor in Norwich in 1783.39 Careers were also boosted by a smart gimmick or new treatment.

Durable success took longer to obtain and required greater solidity of achievement. The visible trappings of wealth worked wonders to help a career. Tobias Smollett, who was a surgeon as well as author, stressed the value of a carriage. It was a ‘travelling sign post to draw in customers’.40 A later observer in 1839 confirmed that perception: ‘a physician who is able to drive his own carriage, is considered extremely clever in his profession, and is patronised accordingly.’41

Crucial in the doctors’ quest for respectability was the need to distance themselves from the untrained ‘empirics’ and outright ‘quacks’. These latter were the commercial ‘irregulars’ of the medical business. In origin, they were named for the fast ‘quacking’ patter with which they hawked their cures, although some were eloquent speakers.42 They were difficult to count or even to define, since orthodox doctors were not above abusing each other with the title.43 But all who peddled infallible potions or cures enraged the regular profession, as universal panaceas offended against the basic medical rule that enjoined careful attention to each specific case history. The Modern Quack was an impudent fraud who deluded both rich and poor, warned a London physician in 1718.44 That was repeated by every generation of doctors, fuelled by conservatism and genuine concern.

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