Bodies Politic: Disease, Death and Doctors in Britain, 1650-1900Bodies Politic takes a critical look at representations of the body in death, disease, and health, as well as at images of the healing arts in Britain from the mid-seventeenth to the twentieth century. Arguing that great symbolic weight was attached to contrasting conceptions of the healthy and diseased body, Roy Porter shows that such ideas were mapped onto antithetical notions of the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly. With these images in mind, he explores aspects of being ill alongside the practice of medicine, paying special attention to self-presentations by physicians, surgeons, and quacks and the changes in practitioners’ public identities over time. Packed with amusing anecdotes and unusual illustrations, this book is a magisterial account of the meanings of disease, doctoring, and the “body politic.” “A wonderful book. . . . There are 137 illustrations . . . and every one is an exultation in the fleshly horrors of the era.”—Guardian (UK) “Roy Porter is one of the world’s best historical writers: his prose is pithy, witty, vivid, engaging, and perfectly paced. He has a keen eye for evidence and can wrest conclusions with analytical rigour and imaginative subtlety. He masters fact and theory with equal ease and wields both lightly and powerfully.”—Independent |
From inside the book
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Page 17
... Cruikshank's 'The Blue Devils—!!' (illus. ). Sitting by a grate empty save for a long bill, a depressed gentleman clad in nightgown, cap and slippers is beleaguered by various devils: a bailiff serves him a writ; a hangman drapes a ...
... Cruikshank's 'The Blue Devils—!!' (illus. ). Sitting by a grate empty save for a long bill, a depressed gentleman clad in nightgown, cap and slippers is beleaguered by various devils: a bailiff serves him a writ; a hangman drapes a ...
Page 20
... Cruikshank's cartoons, Foote's farce and much other comparable material, this book raises questions about the portrayal of matters corporeal and medical in post-Restoration England. What symbolic significance did medicine carry? And how ...
... Cruikshank's cartoons, Foote's farce and much other comparable material, this book raises questions about the portrayal of matters corporeal and medical in post-Restoration England. What symbolic significance did medicine carry? And how ...
Page 29
... Cruikshank in what became the 'golden age' of British caricature. From the accession of Queen Victoria, however, British satirical art was to shed its savagery, and caricature was refined into less vicious forms of graphic humour ...
... Cruikshank in what became the 'golden age' of British caricature. From the accession of Queen Victoria, however, British satirical art was to shed its savagery, and caricature was refined into less vicious forms of graphic humour ...
Page 97
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Page 102
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Contents
8 | |
9 | |
15 | |
35 | |
3 The Body Healthy and Beautiful | 63 |
4 Imagining Disease | 89 |
Plate Section I | 97 |
5 Prototypes of Practitioners | 129 |
Plate Secton II | 177 |
8 Professional Problems | 209 |
9 The Medical Politician and the Body Politic | 229 |
10 VictorianDevelopments | 250 |
Afterword | 272 |
References | 276 |
Select Bibliography | 315 |
Photographic Acknowledgements | 318 |
Other editions - View all
Bodies Politic: Disease, Death and Doctors in Britain, 1650-1900 Roy Porter No preview available - 2001 |
Bodies Politic: Disease, Death and Doctors in Britain, 1650-1900 Roy Porter No preview available - 2014 |
Common terms and phrases
anatomy apothecary Bath blood Britain British Cambridge captioning Caricature cartoon Chapter Christopher Lawrence College of Physicians coloured etching comic Cruikshank culture Death depicted disease dissection doctors Dorothy Porter E. P. Thompson Eighteenth Century English engraving Enlightenment Erasmus Darwin Essays etching with watercolour fashionable female Fiction flesh G. S. Rousseau George Cheyne George Cruikshank Georgian Gout Harmondsworth Haslam Haven healing History Hogarth to Rowlandson Hospital humour idem Ihid illus James Gillray John Bull Lady Letters London Lord Malady Mary Medicine mind moral Nature novel ofthe pain physic physician Pills political popular portrait practice practitioners profession professional Punch quack reads Renaissance representations Richard Robert Roy Porter Royal College Samuel Samuel Garth satire Science sexual Shandy sick Social Society Steven Shapin surgeon teeth theatre Thomas Beddoes Thomas Rowlandson Victorian vols London vols Oxford W. F. Bynum William Hunter women Woodward York