Back to Medical Library Search

Revolutionary Medicine: 1700-1800
by C. Keith Wilbur
The Globe Pequot Press, Old Saybrook, Connecticut, 1980, 80pp, PB
[America, 18C]

Chapters
• Educating the Revolutionary Physician
  • Varied Abilities -- medical schools a rarity
  • Apprentice System -- the preferred and practical path
  • Big City Advantages -- occasional lectures for the fortunate
  • Anatomy -- wax models and drawings more accpetable to the public than "Resurrectionist" activities
• Quality of Care
  Early regimental screen; four medical quacks
  • Hasty Guidlines -- vague Congressional regulations for the Medical Department
• The Hospital
  Medical Department positions and duties
  • Director-Generals -- plagued by disaster
    Dr. Benjamin Church, Dr. John Morgan, Dr. William Shippen
• No Shortage on Theories
  • The Struggle to understand illness
    • Revelation! Excessive or insufficient nerve stimulation caused disease!
• Basic Treatments
  • Removing Excessive Irritability
    • Bloodletting technique, Blisters, Cataplasms, Formentation, Clysters
  • Medications
    • Anodynes, Antiarthritics, Antidysentery, Antipyretics, Emetics, Muscular spasm, Purgatives or Cathartics, Salivation, Sudorifics or Diaphoretics, Diuretics
  • Decreased Tissue Irritability
    • Anodynes, Cathartics, Clysters, Rubefacients, Simulants, Diet

  ---