scholarly journals Why Do We Do What We Do? The Values of the Social History of Medicine

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-17
Author(s):  
Richard A McKay
Keyword(s):  
History Of Medicine ◽  
Social History ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Working Paper ◽  
Biennial Conference ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Social History Of Medicine ◽  
Short Working

Abstract At the Society for the Social History of Medicine (SSHM)’s biennial conference in Liverpool in July 2018, members gathered to discuss a short working paper developed by the Society’s executive committee to articulate the values underpinning the SSHM’s mission. The occasion marked the first public discussion of this document, in development since 2015, which was intended to encourage disciplinary self-awareness and engagement, to give a sense of the breadth and importance of work carried out in our field and to spark broader discussion. To further these aims as the Society celebrates its fiftieth anniversary, the working paper appears here, accompanied by a foreword from the Society’s Policy Development Officer and the lightly revised invited responses shared that day by five members at different career stages.

Establishment and Dissent in Nineteenth-Century Medicine: An Exploration of some Correspondence and Connections Between Religious and Medical Belief-Systems in Early Industrial England

1982 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 165-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
John V. Pickstone
Keyword(s):  
History Of Medicine ◽  
Social History ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
Sociology Of Religion ◽  
Industrial Society ◽  
Medical Attendant ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Social History Of Medicine

I know the historical sociology of religion only as an outsider; as an historian of medicine helped by that literature to a better understanding of early industrial society and perhaps to a clearer vision of what the social history of medicine ought to be. To read a recent review of the social history of religion, such as A. D. Gilbert’s Religion and Society in Industrial England, Church, Chapel and Social Change, 1740-1914, is to recognise how underdeveloped by comparison is the social history of medicine. Historians of medicine have the equivalent of church histories, of histories of theology and, of course, biographies of divines, but we lack the quantitative and comprehensive surveys of the chronological and geographical patterns in lay attendance and membership, and in professional recruitment and modes of work. For as long as medicine was generally only a transaction between an individual and his medical attendant, few statistics were produced and there is little national data. Yet there are very few local studies of how diseases were handled and how the various kinds of practitioner interacted with each other and with their various publics, so it will be some time before we shall be able to generalise on such matters.

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