Bodies Politic: Disease, Death and Doctors in Britain, 1650–1900Reaktion Books, Mar 8, 2021 - 328 pages In this historical tour de force, Roy Porter takes a critical look at representations of the body in health, disease, and death in Britain from the mid-seventeenth to the twentieth century. Porter argues that great symbolic weight was attached to contrasting conceptions of the healthy and diseased body and 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 to changes in practitioners’ public identities over time. Porter also examines the wider symbolic meanings of disease and doctoring and the “body politic.” Porter’s book is packed with outrageous and amusing anecdotes portraying diseased bodies and medical practitioners alike. |
From inside the book
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Page 14
... Teeth were loosened with mercury as part of the 'salivation cure' for syphilis, and several of Moll's teeth rest on a piece of paper bearing Dr Rock's name. One woman helps Moll; the other begins a premature search for grave-clothing ...
... Teeth were loosened with mercury as part of the 'salivation cure' for syphilis, and several of Moll's teeth rest on a piece of paper bearing Dr Rock's name. One woman helps Moll; the other begins a premature search for grave-clothing ...
Page 15
... teeth, which have fallen out presumably as a side effect of Rock's much-touted mercurial syphilis cure. By the table ... teeth, nippers, pills, packets and gallipots. No man can promisefairerthanhe;for,asheobserves ...
... teeth, which have fallen out presumably as a side effect of Rock's much-touted mercurial syphilis cure. By the table ... teeth, nippers, pills, packets and gallipots. No man can promisefairerthanhe;for,asheobserves ...
Page 21
... , fitting trusses, pulling teeth and, as just mentioned, letting blood. Experience had taught, however, that all but the most simple incisions or fractures turned septic or gangrenous; hence operations were limited in scope.
... , fitting trusses, pulling teeth and, as just mentioned, letting blood. Experience had taught, however, that all but the most simple incisions or fractures turned septic or gangrenous; hence operations were limited in scope.
Page 45
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Page 72
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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