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PubMed2000

Patients' rights and the law of contract in eighteenth-century England.

The study of 34 lawsuits between practitioners and patients shows how the law relating to contracts was brought to bear on convicts over medical practice in eighteenth-century England. It shows that patients in this period had rights, and explores them though the practice of the courts. The article illuminates two substantial changes: the decline of the contract of cure, and the creation of the patient's right to disregard bills for fees from physicians and apothecaries. It argues that the common law created a medical market-place that was differentiated by the legal status of the patient, and that this affected the character of many healing relationships, even though the legal scrutiny of a patient-practitioner encounter was a relatively infrequent occurrence. The inability of married women and minors to make contracts, along with the legal and customary responsibility of employers for the health of servants and apprentices, meant that many patients in eighteenth-century England were not the autonomous consumers of medical care that existing histories of the patient in this period suggest. The essay thus investigates the impact of the law on the culture of medicine, whilst using legal sources to address questions about power in healing relationships.

Contracts↗

PubMed1990

Socio-economic determinants of marital fertility in two eighteenth-century Dutch villages.

Socioeconomic determinants of marital fertility in eighteenth-century Netherlands are examined through analysis of birth intervals. "The findings...suggest that economic factors may affect marital fertility in pre-transition societies. In the example presented here, economic factors seem to affect marital fertility in the lower class mostly unconsciously, through changes in breastfeeding practices. Economic factors seem to affect the marital fertility of upper-class women in the early stages of the reproductive cycle through the conscious practice of contraception." (SUMMARY IN FRE)

Birth Intervals↗

PubMed2006

Is there a problem with mathematical psychology in the eighteenth century? A fresh look at Kant's old argument.

Common opinion ascribes to Immanuel Kant the view that psychology cannot become a science properly so called, because it cannot be mathematized. It is equally common to claim that this reflects the state of the art of his times; that the quantification of the mind was not achieved during the eighteenth century, while it was so during the nineteenth century; or that Kant's so-called "impossibility claim" was refuted by nineteenth-century developments, which in turn opened one path for psychology to become properly scientific. These opinions are often connected, but they are misguided nevertheless. In Part I, I show how the issue of a quantification of the mind was discussed before Kant, and I analyze the philosophical considerations both of pessimistic and optimistic authors. This debate reveals a certain progress, although it remains ultimately undecided. In Part II, I present actual examples of measuring the mind in the eighteenth century and analyze their presuppositions. Although these examples are limited in certain ways, the common view that there was no such measurement is wrong. In Part III, I show how Kant's notorious " impossibility claim" has to be viewed against its historical background. He not only accepts actual examples of a quantitative treatment of the mind, but also takes steps toward an explanation of their possibility. Thus, he does not advance the claim that the mind as such cannot be mathematized. His claim is directed against certain philosophical assumptions about the mind, assumptions shared by a then-dominating, strongly introspectionist conception of psychology. This conception did and could not provide an explanation of the possibility of quantifying the mind. In concluding, I reflect on how this case study helps to improve the dispute over when and why psychology became a science.

Attitude↗

PubMed2001

The "languid child" and the eighteenth-century man-midwife.

This article addresses the methods used to preserve the life of a sickly neonate--that is, a child described as "languid" in the immediate period after birth. By looking at the work of some seventeenth-century midwifery authors, we can see how a fragile baby was handled in the period before formal training in midwifery and in the appropriate use of forceps. The article assesses the recognized causes of neonatal risk at the time of William Smellie. Examples from the manuscript midwifery case histories of William Hey, F.R.S. (1736-1819), reveal how a provincial man-midwife handled at-risk babies in domiciliary deliveries. The article also places William Hey within the wider group of eighteenth-century men-midwives and those whose work was leading them toward neonatal and infant care. Respect for life, parental love and grief, and the status of men-midwives in the last half of the eighteenth century are discussed.

Equipment Design↗

PubMed1988

Medicolegal investigation of an eighteenth century homicide.

The skeleton of an adult man, recovered from an eighteenth century French fort site in Indiana, exhibited a series of sharp force wounds. The lesions, three cranial and one postcranial, had apparently been made by a heavy metal instrument similar to one of the European ax heads discovered elsewhere at the site. In this paper we describe the wounds, argue that the instrument used to create them was a European ax, and offer the opinion that the manner of death in this case was homicide.

Adult↗

PubMed1987

Dementia during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: a conceptual history.

An historical analysis is made of the word and of the concept of 'dementia' before the nineteenth century. With regard to the word, it is shown that it had legal and medical meanings and that, while the former developed during the seventeenth century, the latter did so only during the eighteenth century (earlier than psychiatric historians have suggested). As evidence for the latter point, rare historical material on 'Démence' from the first edition of the Encyclopédie Française is presented for the first time in English. It is also shown that the legal meaning was finally enshrined in the 'Code Napoléon'. With regards to the concept of dementia, it is shown that it took final shape in the work of Willis, Hartley and Cullen in whose view it was made to include terminal states of behavioural incompetence due to severe failure of almost any mental function. During this period, dementia was not yet associated with a particular age group nor was specifically defined in terms of cognitive deficit. The origins of the 'cognitive' paradigm of dementia and of the clinical boundaries of the future concept of dementia are briefly outlined.

Dementia↗

PubMed1997

Inoculating the urban poor in the late eighteenth century.

Historical accounts of the practice of smallpox inoculation in the late eighteenth century invariably made a distinction between the widespread general inoculations carried out within small rural parishes and the partial inoculations in urban centres such as London, Manchester, Newcastle and Leeds. This distinction, moreover, is generally reinforced by concluding that the rural inoculation programmes were 'highly effective' or 'successful' in contrast with the urban inoculation schemes, which are often seen as 'marginally effective' or indeed 'failing'. Success or failure tends to be judged by the impact which inoculation had upon reducing mortality from smallpox, but as a result of this demographic focus the motives behind the implementation of urban inoculation have been overlooked. My paper readjusts this balance by looking more closely at motives and by judging success in relation to aims. To achieve this I have taken a new approach towards the history of smallpox inoculation as a whole, and portray the basic idea of giving a person smallpox in order to confer subsequent immunity as being modified in the hands of different people throughout the course of the century. Hence it is possible to trace the development of inoculation from a folk practice carried out within the home with the aim of protecting individuals, to large-scale general inoculation of an entire community, which aimed to eradicate the disease altogether.

History, 18th Century↗

PubMedDate not supplied

[Aspects of women's status and employment in Rome during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries].

The status of unmarried women in Rome during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is examined. "The structure of the domestic groups where widows, spinsters and women temporarily alone lived and of which they were the head has been analysed as well as the socioeconomic conditions of these 'solitary women'.... Almost always the female heads of a family were widows, [heirs] to a trading and/or artisan activity that they could manage temporarily only. As a matter of fact strict rules provided that a man should manage any kind of firm." Data are from parish registers. (SUMMARY IN ENG AND FRE)

Developed Countries↗

PubMed2004

Class, gender and madness in eighteenth-century Scotland.

This chapter uses a wide range of qualitative and quantitative sources from eighteenth-century Scotland to ask whether identifying someone as mad was an arbitrary means of exerting power over them. Separate sections analyse the effect of gender and class on the constructions of mental disability. The conclusion is that rather than providing evidence of a crude bourgeois and/or male conspiracy, understandings of mental incapacity reveal in a subtle and nuanced way the nature and extent of distinctions between people based on their social status, age, occupation and sex.

Age Factors↗

PubMed1994

Medical "publishing societies" in eighteenth-century Britain.

This article reviews the relationship between medical journals and publishing societies in eighteenth-century Great Britain. The importance of the perception that these journals were being issued under the auspices of societies is revealed by the number of times this kind of sponsorship was invoked by new medical journals. This kind of endorsement was projected even when a society so designated exercised only a nominal responsibility for the journal and, even when, in some instances, no organization can be said to have existed.

History, 18th Century↗

PubMed1999

Old and cared for: place of residence for elderly women in eighteenth-century Toulouse.

Although they lacked the ideological and economic advantages of patriarchal authority, women in eighteenth-century France were no less likely than men to receive support in their old age from friends and family. Elderly women rarely lived on their own, and when they could not rely on their children for support, they found care in more distant kin and friends. This support was not derived from economic coercion but from a vague sense of moral duty. Informal networks of care sufficed for both the rich and the poor except in cases of extreme illness.

Family↗

PubMed1996

Medical representations of the body in Japan: gender, class, and discourse in the eighteenth century.

This paper examines the introduction of European anatomy to Japan via translated medical texts in the eighteenth century. It argues how detailed illustrations of the body found in the texts presented a new discourse by which to objectify and control the body, and new metaphors and analogies by which to view society. Inspection of bodily parts through dissection and the reading of anatomical texts marked a transition to Western forms of science, to 'reliable' knowledge which was certified by the social status of the author. By looking at one important text, the Kaitai shinsho [A New Book of Anatomy] (1774), it will be shown that changes in representations of the body reflect the social construction of gender.

Anatomy↗

PubMed2001

The study of the natural sciences and botanical and zoological illustration in Tuscany under the Medicis from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries.

A vast body of botanical and zoological illustrations was produced in Tuscany between the sixteenth and the eighteenth century. This artistic activity was made possible by the humanistic-scientific tradition which had been established in Florence during the late fifteenth century, and was further encouraged by the Medici dynasty. The contributions made by three uniquely talented and original artists are discussed. Jacopo Ligozzi produced paintings of plants and animals whose scientific accuracy and artistic quality far surpassed anything achieved by his predecessors. The miniaturist Giovanna Garzoni produced floral paintings for the Medici family. Bartolomeo Bimbi combined the genre of botanical and zoological illustration with that of the still life to create works of striking originality. The crucial role played by the new scientific institutions created during the Renaissance is also discussed. A permanent artists' studio was set up in the mid-sixteenth century at Pisa Botanic Garden. Members of Accademia del Cimento in Florence engaged in pioneering studies with the microscope, a newly invented instrument which gave scientists and artists an entirely new perspective on the natural world. The scientist Francesco Redi carried out important work with the help of the artist Filizio Pizzichi who prepared stunning microscopic studies of insects.

History, 16th Century↗

PubMed2005

Scots doctors and their compatriots in the service of eighteenth-century Czars.

Scots doctors, several of them from one Dumfriesshire village - Lochmaben - played a key role in eighteenth-century Russia, several as personal physicians to the Czars. Some gained fame and fortune through their clinical skills, others through their acceptance in high society, others as a result of their contribution to the establishment of civilian and military health services and medical education, and a few through their influence on the Imperial and Privy Councils.

Famous Persons↗

PubMed1975

Some eighteenth century authorities on the resuscitation of the apparently drowned.

Attempts to resuscitate the apparently drowned began seriously in the eighteenth century. The theories and methods of resuscitation used or advocated by some of the early European workers have been reviewed. Many of these, including artificial ventilation, chest compression, endotracheal intubation and electrical stimulation of the heart seem to have been forgotten during the nineteenth century and not used again until recent times.

Drowning↗

PubMed1995

The eighteenth-century scientific community: a prosopographical study.

The object of this note is to provide a prosopographical analysis of the eighteenth-century scientific community with a view to explaining the gradual breakdown over the course of that century of the traditional general categories of 'natural philosophy' and 'natural history', and their replacement by a wide range of separate scientific disciplines.

History, 18th Century↗

PubMed1996

Bioethics in the twenty-first century: why we should pay attention to eighteenth-century medical ethics.

Those of us who work in the field of bioethics tend to think that, because the word "bioethics" is new, so too the field is new in all respects, but we are not the first to do bioethics. John Gregory (1724-1773) did bioethics just as we do it, at least two centuries before we thought to do it. He deployed philosophical methods as sophisticated as our own. Indeed, Gregory took up the very best moral philosophy available to thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment, namely, David Hume's moral philosophy and its core concept of sympathy. Gregory also responded in a conceptually powerful and clinically applicable way to the problems of his time, just as we do. I want here to outline Gregory's accomplishment and to identify some aspects of its importance for bioethics in the twenty-first century.

Bioethics↗

PubMed2002

Analysis and the hierarchy of nature in eighteenth-century chemistry.

What was the impact of Lavoisier's new elementary chemical analysis on the conception and practice of chemistry in the vegetable kingdom at the end of the eighteenth century? I examine how this elementary analysis relates both to more traditional plant analysis and to philosophical and mathematical concepts of analysis of current in the Enlightenment. Thus I explore the relationship between algebra, Condillac's philosophy and Lavoisier's chemical system as well as comparing Lavoisier's analytical approach to those of his predecessors, such as Baumè and Bucquet. With reference to the aims of vegetable analysis, I show how the dominance of elementary analysis devalued a tradition that sought to isolate immediate principles (plant extracts), marginalizing the chemical practices of many doctors and pharmacists in the context of the new chemistry in France.

Chemistry, Analytic↗