Health, Medicine, and Society in Victorian England

237 Pages·2009·1.63 MB·English

by  Mary Wilson Carpenter

HEALTH, MEDICINE, AND SOCIETY
IN VICTORIAN ENGLAND
RecentTitlesin
VictorianLifeandTimes
FamilyTiesinVictorianEngland
ClaudiaNelson
FoodandCookinginVictorianEngland
AndreaBroomfield
VictorianReligion:FaithandLifeinBritain
JulieMelnyk
‘‘GonetotheShops’’:ShoppinginVictorianEngland
KelleyGraham
VictorianChildhoods
GingerS.Frost
VictorianTechnology:Invention,Innovation,andtheRiseoftheMachine
HerbertSussman
HEALTH, MEDICINE, AND
SOCIETY IN VICTORIAN
ENGLAND
Mary Wilson Carpenter
VICTORIANLIFEANDTIMES
SallyMitchell,SeriesEditor
P
RAEGER
AnImprintofABC-CLIO,LLC
Copyright2010byMaryWilsonCarpenter
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,
storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyany
means,electronic,mechanical,photocopying,recording,orotherwise,
exceptfortheinclusionofbriefquotationsinareview,withoutprior
permissioninwritingfromthepublisher.
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Carpenter,MaryWilson,1937-
Health,medicine,andsocietyinVictorianEngland/MaryWilsonCarpenter.
p.cm.—(Victorianlifeandtimes)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN978-0-275-98952-1(hardcopy:alk.paper)—ISBN978-0-313-
06542-2(ebook)1.Socialmedicine—England—History—19thcentury.2.Medicine—
England—History—19thcentury.3.Publichealth—England—History—
19thcentury.I.Title.
RA418.3.G7C372010
362.1—dc22 2009031084
ISBN:978-0-275-98952-1
EISBN:978-0-313-06542-2
14 13 12 11 10 1 2 3 4 5
ThisbookisalsoavailableontheWorldWideWebasaneBook.
Visitwww.abc-clio.comfordetails.
Praeger
AnimprintofABC-CLIO,LLC
ABC-CLIO,LLC
130CremonaDrive,P.O.Box1911
SantaBarbara,California93116-1911
Thisbookisprintedonacid-freepaper
ManufacturedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
CONTENTS
Illustrations vii
SeriesForeword ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Chronology xv
Introduction 1
1. PractitionersandPatientsinVictorianEngland 9
2. Cholera 34
3. Tuberculosis 54
4. Syphilis 71
5. Smallpox 91
6. Deafness 108
7. Blindness 128
8. VictorianWomenasPatientsandPractitioners 149
Glossary 177
Notes 181
Bibliography 193
Index 203

ILLUSTRATIONS
JohnSnow,1856 14
La€ennecstethoscope,1826 21
‘‘TheLondonUniversity,’’1828 22
JosephLister,1stBaronLister(1827–1912),surgeon,c.1895 29
‘‘BlueStageoftheSpasmodicCholera.SketchofaGirlwhodiedof
Cholera,inSunderland,November,1831’’ 40
‘‘MonsterSoupcommonlycalledThameswater,beingacorrect
representationofthatpreciousstuffdoledouttous!!!...’’1828 46
‘‘FaradayGivingHisCardtoFatherThames;andwehopetheDirty
FellowwillconsulttheLearnedProfessor,’’1855 52
Frontispiece,La€ennec,Trait(cid:2)edeL’AuscultationMediate...1826 63
FracastorowarnstheshepherdSyphilusandthehunterIlceus
againstyieldingto‘‘attractionsoflove,’’1588/1595 76
‘‘Syphilis,’’1910 84
LadyMaryWortleyMontaguinTurkishdress,1844 97
ThehandofSarahNelmesinfectedwithcowpox,1798 101
TwoVictorianeartrumpets 114
HarrietMartineau,1888 123
Diagramofeyeanatomy 138
Traditionalseatedpositionforcataractsurgery,1843 139
viii Illustrations
WilliamHunter,TheAnatomyoftheHumanGravid
UterusexhibitedinFigures,PlateVI,1774.
Normalfull-terminfant 160
WilliamHunter,TheAnatomyoftheHumanGravid
UterusexhibitedinFigures,PlateXX,1774.Placentapraevia 162
SERIES FOREWORD
Although the nineteenth century has almost faded from living memory—
most people who heard firsthand stories from grandparents who grew up
before 1900 have adult grandchildren by now—impressions of the Victo-
rian world continue to influence both popular culture and public debates.
These impressions may well be vivid yet contradictory. Many people, for
example, believe that Victorian society was safe, family-centered, and stable
because women could not work outside the home. Yet, every census taken
during the period records hundreds of thousands of female laborers in
fields, factories, shops, and schools as well as more than a million domestic
servants (often girls of fourteen or fifteen) whose long and unregulated
workdays created the comfortable, leisured world we see in Merchant Ivory
films. Yet it is also true that there were women who had no household
duties and desperately wished for some purpose in life but found that social
expectations and family pressure absolutely prohibited their presence in the
workplace.
The goal of books in the Victorian Life and Times series is to explain and
enrich the simple pictures that show only a partial truth. Although the Vic-
torian period in Great Britain is often portrayed as peaceful, comfortable,
and traditional, it was actually a time of truly breathtaking change. In 1837,
when eighteen-year-old Victoria became queen, relatively few of England’s
people had ever traveled more than ten miles from the place where they
were born. Little more than half the population could read and write, chil-
dren as young as five worked in factories and mines, and political power was
entirely in the hands of a small minority of men who held property. By the
time Queen Victoria died in 1901, railways provided fast and cheap