Making a Medical Living: Doctors and Patients in the English Market for Medicine, 1720–1911 (Cambridge Studies in Population, Economy and Society in Past Time, Series Number 24) - Hardcover

Digby, Anne

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 052134526X ISBN 13: 9780521345262

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1994

Synopsis

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.

About this title

From the Back Cover

How did doctors make a living? Making a Medical Living explores the neglected socio-economic history of medical practice, beginning with the first voluntary hospital in 1720 and ending with national health insurance in 1911. It looks at private practice and how this was supplemented by public appointments. In this innovative study, Anne Digby makes use of new archival sources of information to produce a compelling picture of ordinary rather than elite doctors, and of the dynamics of provincial rather than metropolitan practice. From the mid-eighteenth century doctors travelled to see ordinary patients, developed specialisms and expanded institutions. Despite limitations in treatment, doctors raised demand for their services as illuminating case studies of women, children, the poor and the affluent show. But doctors did not limit their own numbers, and were largely unsuccessful in restricting competition from other practitioners, with the significant exception of women. Consequently, many GPs struggled to make a living by seeing numerous patients at low fees. Doctors' entrepreneurial activity thus helped shape English medicine into a distinctive pattern of general and specialist practice, and of public and private health care.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 052134526X
• ISBN 13: 9780521345262
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 372