Synopses & Reviews
Bodies Politicand#160;takes a critical look at representations of the body in death, disease, and health, as well as at images of the healing arts in Britain from the mid-seventeenth to the twentieth century. Arguing that great symbolic weight was attached to contrasting conceptions of the healthy and diseased body, Roy Porter shows that such ideas were mapped onto antithetical notions of the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly. With these images in mind, he explores aspects of being ill alongside the practice of medicine, paying special attention to self-presentations by physicians, surgeons, and quacks and the changes in practitionersand#8217; public identities over time. Packed with amusing anecdotes and unusual illustrations, this book is a magisterial account of the meanings of disease, doctoring, and the and#147;body politic.and#8221;
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and#147;A wonderful book. . . . There are 137 illustrations . . . and every one is an exultation in the fleshly horrors of the era.and#8221;and#151;Guardianand#160;(UK)
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and#147;Roy Porter is one of the worldand#8217;s best historical writers: his prose is pithy, witty, vivid, engaging, and perfectly paced. He has a keen eye for evidence and can wrest conclusions with analytical rigour and imaginative subtlety. He masters fact and theory with equal ease and wields both lightly and powerfully.and#8221;and#151;Independent
Review
and#8220;Ably exploiting the rapid expansion of printed material (medical almanacs, magazines, newspapers, novels and their associated visual images such as the political cartoon) across that period,and#160;Porter has woven a neat but complex discursive tapestry charting the changing faces, models, and meanings of early modern medical knowledge and practice in particular.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;The book fairly quivers with Porterand#8217;s sense of the ridiculous, exploring the peccadilloes of both practitioners and patients in wicked and sometimes scatological detail. It is full of jokes that reveal both the deadly importance of, and the universal indignities associated with suffering and healing. As is true of Porter's other works, it also places health, illness, and medicine at the vital center of British social and political life.and#8221;
Synopsis
Porter argues that great symbolic weight was attached to contrasting conceptions of the healthy and diseased body, and that such ideas were mapped onto antithetical notions of the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly. With these images in mind, he explores aspects of being ill alongside the practice of medicine, paying special attention to self-presentations by physicians, surgeons and quacks, and to changes in practitionersand#8217; public identities over time. Porter also examines the wider symbolic meanings of disease and doctoring and the and#147;body politic.and#8221; Porterand#8217;s book is packed with outrageous and amusing anecdotes portraying diseased bodies and medical practitioners alike.
Synopsis
Medicine is concerned with the most intimate aspects of private life. Yet it is also a focus for diverse forms of public organization and action. In this volume, an international team of scholars use the techniques of medical history to analyse the changing boundaries and constitution of the public sphere from early modernity to the present day.
In a series of detailed historical case studies, contributors examine the role of various public institutions - both formal and informal, voluntary and statutory - in organizing and coordinating collective action on medical matters. In so doing, they challenge the determinism and fatalism of Habermas's overarching and functionalist account of the rise and fall of the public sphere.
Of essential interest to historians and sociologists of medicine, this book will also be of value to historians of modern Britain, historical sociologists, and those engaged in studying the work of J rgen Habermas.
About the Author
Roy Porter (1946-2002) was professor in the social history of medicine at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine in London, UK. He is the author of Religion, Health and Suffering and Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Preface
1. Introductory: Framing the Picture
2. The Body Grotesque and Monstrous
3. The Body Healthy and Beautiful
4. Imagining Disease
5. Prototypes of Practitioners
6. Profiles of Patients
7. Outsiders and Intruders
8. Professional Problems
9. The Medical Politician and the Body Politic
10. Victorian Developments
Afterword
References
Select Bibliography
Photographic Acknowledgements
Index