Medical doctors and persuasion: Introduction

Abstract

The introductory essay offers historical and historiographical context for the thematic papers that follow. It explains why the nineteenth century was transformative in terms of the involvement of medical professionals in political life, and sketches the development of the enduring medical institutions that enabled physicians to engage with the world outside the clinic in this way. It explains that the roots of the current special issue lie in a workshop on medical lobbying, whose thematic content has been reframed so as to focus on the related problem of persuasion. The special issue will explore how it was that medical doctors, principally in modern Britain and France sought to persuade a range of audiences of their authority to intervene in legislative and judicial matters, in the development of public policy, and in popular practices and public opinion around health. Individual articles flesh out the agency of such medical professionals, exploring the rhetorical and performative techniques they had to master in order to convince. The articles acknowledge how such techniques of persuasion were adapted according to the public spaces in which doctors operated, with a special focus on the court room and the popular press. The volume presents physicians and surgeons as thinking and feeling beings conscious of shaping their self-presentation in the quest for socio-political influence. It thereby contributes principally to the cultural history of medicine and health.

More information

Identifiers

Catalogue record

Export record

Altmetrics