Our project's Principal Investigator, Michael Brown, will be speaking on '1800s: Making medical men - conflict, empire and identity in the nineteenth century' at the Royal College of Physicians of London. This will be the 4th lecture in the RCP500 historical lecture series.
6pm: Arrival and refreshments (tea and coffee)
6.30pm: Lecture starts
7.30pm: Lecture finishes
In many ways, the nineteenth century is the century in which the English medical profession can be said to have been ‘made’. From individualised practitioners catering to the corporeal needs of the rich, doctors came increasingly to think of themselves as public servants dedicated to the preservation of the health of the nation as a whole. This transformation was not a smooth one, however. Rather it was borne from intense and bitter conflict between established physicians and a newer bread of ‘general practitioners’ and it brought into question the authority, and very identity, of the Royal College of Physicians. Neither was it a process that took place in isolation; the medical profession, and its attendant values, were shaped by a variety of social forces including Britain’s new found status as a military and imperial power. This lecture will explore these varied dimensions to paint a rich picture of how the medical man of the century came to be who he was.
Image: Operation to Remove a Tumour, 1817 (Wellcome)
