Colchester's Victorian Doctors

Important medical discoveries were made during Queen Victoria’sreign but in this study Jane Pearson is not so much concerned with medicalprogress as with the question of how the profession of medicinedeveloped. The book shows how doctors working in Colchester during theVictorian period developed professionally and also investigates the extent towhich they effected medical and social change in the town. Prior to the Medical Act of 1858 most doctors worked as individualbusinessmen, building up a manageable practice in competition with other medicsin their locality. Deriving their income directly from their patients, doctors wereinclined to refrain from discussing their medical work in public, preferring tomaintain patient confidentiality and to appear conservative. It was difficultto make a reputation in these circumstances and, as a result, some medicslooked to local politics to increase their local standing. After the Act, which set up the register of qualified doctors andinstituted a professional code, the results of medical research began to beshared more widely. Doctors had to learn to cooperate, to call upon colleaguesfor assistance when necessary and to communicate techniques that worked fortheir patients. The education and training of doctors developed to feed andsupport this change. Dr Pearson examines how this was achieved over one or twogenerations and also considers the degree of agency that was exercised by thetown’s doctors, particularly within the entrenched power structures in thetown’s hospitals, and in relation to campaigns for healthier living conditions. Theauthor looks at how the Poor Law welfare system became a point of contentionfor the profession, as its relatively poor remuneration for medical officersrisked reducing doctors’ professional status in general. In Colchester, most ofthe doctors who served the pauperised section of the community did so for agood number of years and most showed a tolerance and understanding of thedifficulties involved in impoverished lives. Drawing on a wealth ofdetailed research, Dr Pearson’s fascinating account of how these significantchanges were achieved in one small Essex town sheds light on a little-knownarea of medical history.

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