Making a Medical Living: Doctors and Patients in the English Market for Medicine, 1720–1911

ISBN-13: 9780521345262 / Angielski / Twarda / 1994 / 372 str.

Anne Digby

Opis

Making a Medical Market begins with the first voluntary hospital in 1720 and ends in 1911 with national health insurance. It looks at different forms of practice--public appointments in hospitals, office under state welfare systems, and private practice. From the 1750s medicine became more commercialized. Doctors were successful in raising demand for their own services but were unsuccessful in restricting competition. Many medical practitioners struggled to make a living by seeing many patients at low fees, so that "five minutes for the patient" is not a new feature of health care.

Recenzje

" Anne Digby reminds us that while physicians in the past treated patients, invented new medical theories, compounded medicines, and made discoveries about the human body, they also made a living...much of Digby's story is familiar to us - marginal men delivering babies, taking care of the mad, treating the poor, and praying for wealthy patients. However, by putting medical economics at the center of her tale, she forces all of us to see what we thought were familiar developments in a new and sharper light." Bull. Hist. Med.

Spis treści

Introduction; Part I. The Professional Structure of Practice: 1. Medical practitioners; 2. The context of practice; 3. Medical encounters; Part II. The Economic Dimensions of Practice: 4. The creation of surgical general practice; 5. The GP and the goal of prosperity; 6. Physicians; Part III. Patients and Doctors: 7. Medicalisation and affluent patients; 8. Office, altruism and poor patients; 9. Expanding practice with women and child patients; Part IV. Synthesis: Reflections.