scholarly journals ‘By Merit Raised to That Bad Eminence’: Christopher Merrett, Artisanal Knowledge, and Professional Reform in Restoration London

2012 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron Mauck

AbstractThis article examines the career and reform agenda of Christopher Merrett as a means of evaluating the changing conditions of medical knowledge production in late seventeenth-century London. This period was characterised by increasing competition between medical practitioners, resulting from the growing consumer demand for medical commodities and services, the reduced ability of elite physicians to control medical practice, and the appearance of alternative methods of producing medical knowledge – particularly experimental methods. This competition resulted in heated exchanges between physicians, apothecaries, and virtuosi, in which Merrett played an active part. As a prominent member of both the Royal Society and the Royal College of Physicians, Merrett sought to mediate between the two institutions by introducing professional reforms designed to alleviate competition and improve medical knowledge.These reforms entailed sweeping changes to medical regulation and education that integrated the traditional reliance on Galenic principles with knowledge derived from experiment and artisanal practices. The emphasis Merrett placed on the trades suggests the important role artisanal knowledge played in his efforts to reorganise medicine and improve knowledge of bodily processes.

2013 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 296-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teodora Daniela Sechel

This article analyses the politics of medical translation and shows the complexity of knowledge production and circulation in the intercultural and multiethnic contexts of the Habsburg Monarchy. It argues that medical translations, including books, manuals, and brochures, were one of the important tools that contributed to the standardization of medical knowledge and practices in this region. Most of these books were authored by physicians and professors at medical schools in Vienna. They had a great influence upon medical knowledge and practices, thus Vienna was the authority approving what was taught and published. The usage of the same manuals and books implies that more or less the same medical knowledge was shared by the medical practitioners in the Habsburg Monarchy. The medical theories and practices transmitted reflect also the games of influence and power exercised by protomedici and professors at the Vienna University. It was a process of authorization and dissemination of knowledge from the “center” to the provinces.


1988 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 280-284
Author(s):  
D. Emslie-Smith

After Harvey's visits to Scotland with Charles I the formation of a united Caroline University in Aberdeen was thwarted by the Civil War. In Oxford Harvey instituted a group of medical scientists, forerunners of the Royal Society, who almost explained the physiology of respiration. Harvey had several things in common with Dr Samuel Johnson. Johnson's medical knowledge and contacts are emphasised, examples of 17th and 18th century health regimens are given and Johnson's friendship with Scottish medical men and some others connected with the Royal College of Physicians and the Harveian Society of Edinburgh are described.


2021 ◽  
pp. 096777202110323
Author(s):  
Simon Gray

Dr James Copland (1791–1870) was born in the Orkney Islands and studied medicine at Edinburgh where he graduated in 1815. The following year was spent in Paris to acquire knowledge of the latest developments in pathology and he then travelled for a year along the coast of West Africa gaining practical experience of treating tropical diseases. After establishing his medical practice in London, which eventually became extremely successful, he contributed to medical journals and also became editor of the London Medical Repository from 1822 to 1825. His greatest work was The Dictionary of Practical Medicine written entirely by himself which was completed between 1832 and 1858. More than 10,000 copies of the dictionary were sold and its author became world famous during his lifetime. In 1833, Copland was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and from 1837 onwards he played a prominent role in the proceedings of The Royal College of Physicians. This article shows how his extensive professional and literary work was combined with an unusual private life.


2021 ◽  
Vol 65 (3) ◽  
pp. 267-285
Author(s):  
Alan Mackintosh

AbstractUntil the beginning of the nineteenth century, registering and regulating the training of any medical practitioners in Britain had rarely been attempted, unlike in many other European countries. During the Revolutionary War with France, fevers swept through British armies, leading to numerous fatalities and crushing military defeats, especially in the disastrous expedition to St Domingo. The problem, as forcibly advocated by Robert Jackson, the leading expert on military fevers, seemed to be poor medical care due to both lack of compulsory medical training and the unsuitability of whatever training was available for army medical practitioners. With the simultaneous rapid advance of French military and civilian medical training and the threat of a French invasion, regulating British medical training and excluding the unqualified became a military necessity, and suddenly medical reform was receiving widespread attention. Emphasising the benefits to the Britain’s fighting ability, the reform effort, led by Edward Harrison, a very provincial Lincolnshire physician, under the patronage of Sir Joseph Banks, the President of the Royal Society, gained the support of leading politicians, including three Prime Ministers. For a short time, comprehensive medical reform seemed inevitable: but the opposition of the medical corporations, especially the London College of Physicians, could not be circumvented, and although Harrison persisted in his efforts for 6 years, no legislation was achieved. Nevertheless, within months, the Association of Apothecaries continued the process by pressing for a more limited reform, culminating in the 1815 Apothecaries Act. The long march towards the full regulation of doctors in Britain was started by the perceived military needs of the country during the war with France.


Tempo ◽  
1950 ◽  
pp. 15-18
Author(s):  
Dennis Arundell

Ever since the seventeenth century composers of English operas have been handicapped by the snob-preference for foreign works irrespective of their merits. In Purcell's day a second-rate French composer, whose past is still shrouded in Continental mystery, was so boosted in London even by Dryden that it was only through an open-air performance by Mr. Priest's school-girls at Chelsea that Dido and Aeneas convinced both London theatre managers and eventually Dryden himself that Purcell was “equal with the best abroad.” In this century, when the usual opera favourites were established, it has been even more difficult for English opera-composers to get a showing (at one time it had not been unheard of for English operas to be translated into Italian or German for production in this country): but twenty-five years ago the Royal College of Music followed the example of Mr. Priest by producing for the first time Vaughan Williams' Hugh the Drover, which was afterwards given publicly by the British National Opera Company, and in 1931 under the auspices of the Ernest Palmer Opera Fund, introduced The Devil Take Her, the first opera by the Australian composer Arthur Benjamin. The enthusiasm of the singers, headed by Sarah Fischer and Trefor Jones, the cunning skill of the conductor, Sir Thomas Beecham and the practical knowledge of the producer, John B. Gordon, who had had so much experience at Cologne and who was at the time doing such good work for opera at the Old Vic, all combined to make the performance outstanding.


1743 ◽  
Vol 42 (470) ◽  
pp. 559-563

Sir , Making bloody Water is universally esteemed as terrible a Symptom as any that can happen in the Small-pox ; and all who have wrote concerning that Distemper, do unanimously agree, that it is a certain Forerunner of approaching Death.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 152-154
Author(s):  
Sunil Chaudhry ◽  
Vishwas Sovani

Keycustomers of the pharmaceutical industry are qualified medical practitioners. To be able to stand their ground the sales representative needs training about medical terminology, the relevant disease, the molecule being marketed and some competitor information. A short induction could be followed by ongoing refresher training either face to face or online. The medical department has a major role to play here. Product launch training is planned by medical and marketing team based on the feature benefits of the product being launched. The training unit of the medical department of pharma companies are an inseparable part of the whole marketing effort.


2022 ◽  
Vol 128 (5) ◽  
pp. 167-198
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Pękacka-Falkowska

The article discusses the hitherto unknown correspondence between the Danzig (present-day Gdańsk) botanist Jacob Breyne, his son Johann Philipp Breyne, and James Petiver in the last decade of the seventeenth century. Their correspondence documents contacts between one of the most important naturalists of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the second half of the seventeenth century and members of the Royal Society. The content of the letters reveals how books, naturalia and various artefacts circulated between Western and East-Central Europe. It also reveals the principles of reciprocity and friendship followed by those who conducted inquiries into natural history.


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