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Influenza Research and the Medical Profession in Eighteenth-Century Britain*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

Margaret DeLacy
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Extract

The depiction of influenza as a separate species of disease first became common during the eighteenth century. During that period, physicians developed competing theories about its etiology (causation) and transmission, including the theory that influenza was contagious. Theories of contagion were held by an increasing number of physicians during the course of the eighteenth century, although the issue remained a contested one, as symbolized by the publication of two separate reports on the epidemic of 1782 by the Royal College of Physicians and the Society for Promoting Medical Knowledge: reports that differed on the question of transmission.

It was because this issue was not settled by an overwhelming preponderance of the evidence that physician's views on this question had political implications that reflect the political and social fissures underlying medical practice in the eighteenth century. This article will examine the political, social, religious, and educational factors that influenced the initiative to investigate influenza as a separate disease, and will argue that these factors also influenced the readiness of some groups of physicians to entertain the hypothesis of contagion in the face of conflicting information. It will also suggest that the divergence of opinion on epidemic diseases reflected the social and educational differences between the graduates of English universities who were eligible for Fellowship in the College of Physicians, and the often equally distinguished “outsiders” who had obtained their medical degrees from other institutions, and who formed competing medical associations.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , Spring 1993 , pp. 37 - 66
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1993

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Footnotes

*

Research for this paper was carried out with the aid of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, an independent federal agency, for 1989–1992. I would like to thank my husband, John DeLacy, for technical assistance, Mr. Geoffrey Davenport of the Royal College of Physicians, Ms. Vivienne Orr of the Nithsdale District Council, Dumfries, Ms. Barbara Cantwell and the Multnomah County [Oregon] Library Interlibrary Loan Dept., Mr. Gary Sampson, Systems Librarian, Portland State University Library; the Oregon Health Sciences University Library; Reed College Library; Ms. Nancy Austin, Head of Cataloguing, Lane Medical Library, Stanford University Medical School; Mr. John Symons, Curator, Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine; the Welch Library of Johns Hopkins University; and the National Library of Medicine for providing material used in this article; and Sir Christopher Booth, Dr. Harold Cook, Dr. Anne Digby, Dr. Elizabeth Eisenstein, Dr. Norma Landau, Dr. Irvine Loudon, Dr. William McCarthy, Dr. Gail Pat Parsons, and Dr. K. David Patterson.

References

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31 On Baker see McConaghey, R. M. S., “Sir George Baker and the Devonshire colic,” Medical History 11 (1967): 345–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Childs, St. Julien R., “Sir George Baker and the Dry Belly-Ache,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 44 (1970): 213–40Google Scholar.

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35 For the history of contagionism, see Winslow, Conquest of Epidemic Disease, and Shryock, Richard Harrison, “Germ theories in medicine prior to 1870,” Clio Medica 7 (1972): 81–109Google ScholarPubMed.

36 Miller, Genevive, The Adoption of Inoculation for Smallpox in England and France (Philadelphia, 1957)Google Scholar. See also Wilkinson, Lise, “The development of the virus concept as reflected in corpora of studies on individual pathogens, 5: Smallpox and the evolution of ideas on acute (viral) infections,” Medical History 23 (1979): 1–28CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; DeLacy, “Influenza in eighteenth-centuiy Britain,” and idem., review of Huxham's, JohnEssay on Fevers, Bulletin of the History of Medicine 64 (1990): 110–11Google Scholar.

37 Fothergill, John, An Acount of the sore Throat Attended with Ulcers (1748)Google Scholar, republished as An Account of Putrid Sore Throat in vol. 1 of The Works of John Fothergill, M.D., ed. Lettsom, John Coakley (London, 1783)Google Scholar. I thank the National Library of Medicine (N.L.M.) for supplying a microfilm copy of this work.

38 See Selwyn, , “Pringle,” p. 268Google ScholarPubMed, and Margaret DeLacy “A Linnaean Thesis on Contagium Vivum: the ‘Exanthemata Viva’ of John Nyander,” paper given at the American Association for the History of Medicine, May 2, 1992.

39 See DeLacy, “Influenza in eighteenth-century Britain,” and idem., “Puerperal Fever in Eighteenth-Century Britain,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 63 (1989): 521-56. For an eighteenth-century discussion see Thomson, John, ed., The Works of William Cullen, M.D., 2 vols. (Edinburgh and London, 1827), 1: 225-362, 479–560Google Scholar. See also Bynum, W.F. and Nutton, V., eds., Theories of Fever from Antiquity to the Enlightenment, Medical History, supp. 1 (London, 1981)Google Scholar, esp. Smith, Dale C., “Medical science, medical practice, and the emerging concept of typhus in mid-eighteenth-century Britain,” pp. 121–34Google ScholarPubMed. See also King, Lester, “Boissier de Sauvages and 18th. century nosology,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 40 (1960): 43–51Google ScholarPubMed; and idem, The Medical World of the Eighteenth Century (Chicago, 1958), pp. 193-99.

40 Campbell, letter to Fothergill in Thompson, , Annals, p. 113Google ScholarPubMed. Campbell (?1749–1832), M.D. Leyden (1770) and Edinburgh (1777), wrote an important book on typhus. Campbell is described as “English” at Leyden but there is some evidence that he lived for a time in America. Lancaster City Library, Biographies File; R. W. Innes Smith, English-Speaking Students.

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52 See note 14 for sources of biographical information. I have assumed that anyone described as “doctor” held a degree (M.B. or M.D.). Rutty, who wrote before and after 1750, is included. Of 145 “doctors,” I counted two “Dr. Scotts” and Dr. John Nelson Scott of the Isle of Man as three different men. Eleven of the “doctors” are identified but not the place of their degrees. Two men, “Chisholm” and “Lindsay,” are named by Hirsch as influenza authors, but I have not been able to verify this. I have not included Edinburgh theses in the tabulations. I have also been unable to consult separate works by Robert Hooper, John Nott, and John Herdman on the epidemic of 1803. Robert Hooper worked as an apothecary before entering Pembroke College and obtaining a B.A. at age 30. Members of the College of Physicians prevented him from obtaining an Oxford M.D., according to the D.N.B.

53 Wallis, and Wallis, , Eighteenth Century Medics, p. xivGoogle Scholar. The Wallises' sample consisted of 142 “doctors,” including 40 whose place of graduation was unknown. The Wallises apparently counted only M.D. degrees, not M.B. degrees, and they counted physicians with more than one degree as half at each university. Recalculation to reconcile this discrepancy would not significantly alter the results.

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