Bad Medicine. Doctors Doing Harm since Hippocrates

321 Pages·2006·6.25 MB·English

by  David Wootton

BAD MEDICINE
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BAD MEDICINE
DOCTORS DOING HARM
SINCE HIPPOCRATES
DAVID WOOTTON
1
3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp
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© David Wootton, 2006
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First published 2006
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ISBN0–19–280355–7 978–0–19–280355–9
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
For Alison Mark and Lisa Wootton
It is interesting and indeed pathetic to observe how long a
discovery of priceless value to humanity may be hidden away,
or rather lie openly revealed, before the final and apparently
obvious step is taken towards its practical application.
(John Tyndall, 1881)
The lancet was the magician’s wand of the dark ages of
medicine.
(Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1882)
... only the most dyed-in-the-wool Whig history still polar-
izes the past in terms of confrontations between saints and
sinners, heroes and villains.
(Roy Porter, 1989)
... by 1700 there was available theoretical and observational
evidence which should have made possible the formulation of
our modern germ-theory of disease.
(Charles-Edward Amory Winslow, 1943)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Alison Mark first suggested this project. Katharine Reeve commis-
sioned it. Luciana O’Flaherty adopted it. Students at Queen Mary,
University of London, and at the University of York explored the sub-
ject with me. The University of York gave me a sabbatical in which to
write. Audiences at Birkbeck, University of London; the History of
Science Seminar in the University of Cambridge; the Department of
History in the University of York; and the National Humanities
Centre at Ralegh-Durham discussed chapters with me. Harold Cook,
Lauren Kassell, Stuart Reynolds, and Lisa Wootton read a draft, and I
am grateful for their comments. They are not responsible for my
errors, nor my failings. Nor, of course, is Alison Mark, who has kept
company with this project from beginning to end.
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CONTENTS
note on sources xi
list of illustrations xiii
list of tables xv
Introduction: Bad Medicine/Better Medicine 1
I. The Hippocratic Tradition 27
1. Hippocrates and Galen 29
2. Ancient Anatomy 42
3. The Canon 49
4. The Senses 53
Conclusion to Part I: the Placebo Effect 67
II. Revolution Postponed 71
5. Vesalius and Dissection 73
6. Harvey and Vivisection 94
7. The Invisible World 110
Conclusion to Part II: Trust Not
the Physician 139
III. Modern Medicine 151
8. Counting 153
9. Birth of the Clinic 177
10. The Laboratory 185
11. John Snow and Cholera 195
12. Puerperal Fever 211
13. Joseph Lister and Antiseptic Surgery 224
14. Alexander Fleming and Penicillin 242
Conclusion to Part III: Progress Delayed 250