Elisha Bartlett's Philosophy of Medicine


Book Description

The idea of preparing a new critical edition of Elisha Bartlett’s Essay on the Philosophy of Medical Science was suggested to me several years ago by Dr. H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr. Since that time it has been a pleasure to get to know the life and work of Elisha Bartlett. I am pleased to be completing this book in the bicentennial year of Bartlett’s birth. Bartlett was born in 1804 in Smithfield, Rhode Island, less than twenty-five miles from Worcester, Massachusetts, my present home—a short journey even in Bartlett’s day. I have been able to walk at some of the sites to which Bartlett continually returned during his life. Visiting Bartlett’s grave in the Slatersville cemetery has been an inspiration for the preparation of this book. Proximity to several institutions with rich holdings in Bartlett’s works and in nineteenth-century American history of medicine greatly facilitated my research. First, though, I want to acknowledge the College of the Holy Cross for supporting my sabbatical leave for the academic year 2003-2004. The American Antiquarian Society, in Worcester, Massachusetts, was generous in giving me access to its remarkable resources. I was able to find many of Bartlett’s published works and other nineteenth-century medical literature there, and the entire library staff provided quick and able research assistance.




An Essay on the Philosophy of Medical Science


Book Description

In two parts in one volume: "Philosophy of physical science" and "Philosophy of medical science". Bartlett "argued that the observation of facts was the sole path to medical enlightenment, and the only legitimate manipulations of facts were classification and generalization based on numerical analysis."--Dictionary of American biography, v.1, p.40.




Dictionary of Early American Philosophers


Book Description

The Dictionary of Early American Philosophers, which contains over 400 entries by nearly 300 authors, provides an account of philosophical thought in the United States and Canada between 1600 and 1860. The label of "philosopher" has been broadly applied in this Dictionary to intellectuals who have made philosophical contributions regardless of academic career or professional title. Most figures were not academic philosophers, as few such positions existed then, but they did work on philosophical issues and explored philosophical questions involved in such fields as pedagogy, rhetoric, the arts, history, politics, economics, sociology, psychology, medicine, anthropology, religion, metaphysics, and the natural sciences. Each entry begins with biographical and career information, and continues with a discussion of the subject's writings, teaching, and thought. A cross-referencing system refers the reader to other entries. The concluding bibliography lists significant publications by the subject, posthumous editions and collected works, and further reading about the subject.




An Introductory Philosophy of Medicine


Book Description

In this book the author explores the shifting philosophical boundaries of modern medical knowledge and practice occasioned by the crisis of quality-of-care, especially in terms of the various humanistic adjustments to the biomedical model. To that end he examines the metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical boundaries of these medical models. He begins with their metaphysics, analyzing the metaphysical positions and presuppositions and ontological commitments upon which medical knowledge and practice is founded. Next, he considers the epistemological issues that face these medical models, particularly those driven by methodological procedures undertaken by epistemic agents to constitute medical knowledge and practice. Finally, he examines the axiological boundaries and the ethical implications of each model, especially in terms of the physician-patient relationship. In a concluding Epilogue, he discusses how the philosophical analysis of the humanization of modern medicine helps to address the crisis-of-care, as well as the question of “What is medicine?” The book’s unique features include a comprehensive coverage of the various topics in the philosophy of medicine that have emerged over the past several decades and a philosophical context for embedding bioethical discussions. The book’s target audiences include both undergraduate and graduate students, as well as healthcare professionals and professional philosophers. “This book is the 99th issue of the Series Philosophy and Medicine...and it can be considered a crown of thirty years of intensive and dynamic discussion in the field. We are completely convinced that after its publication, it can be finally said that undoubtedly the philosophy of medicine exists as a special field of inquiry.”




Medical Thinking


Book Description

Lester S. King, M.D., focuses on those aspects of medicine that remain constant through the centuries--the problems that doctors always face and the critical judgment needed to solve them. According to Dr. King, modern technological advances are really new ways of answering old questions, while the basic modes of medical thinking have not changed. Originally published in 1982. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.




Professionalizing Medicine


Book Description

This biography of James Edmund Reeves, whose legislative accomplishments cemented American physicians' control of the medical marketplace, illuminates landmarks of American health care: the troubled introduction of clinical epidemiology and development of botanic medicine and homeopathy, the Civil War's stimulation of sanitary science and hospital medicine, the rise of government involvement, the revolution in laboratory medicine, and the explosive growth of phony cures. It recounts the human side of medicine as well, including the management of untreatable diseases and the complex politics of medical practice and professional organizing. Reeves' life provides a reminder that while politics, economics, and science drive the societal trajectory of modern health care, moral decisions often determine its path.




The Growth of Medical Knowledge


Book Description

The growth of knowledge and its effects on the practice of medicine have been issues of philosophical and ethical interest for several decades and will remain so for many years to come. The outline of the present volume was conceived nearly three years ago. In 1987, a conference on this theme was held in Maastricht, the Netherlands, on the occasion of the founding of the European Society for Philosophy of Medicine and Health Care (ESPMH). Most of the chapters of this book are derived from papers presented at that meeting, and for the purpose of editing the book Stuart Spicker, Ph. D. , joined two founding members of ESPMH, Henk ten Have and Gerrit Kimsma. The three of them successfully brought together a number of interesting contribu tions to the theme, and ESPMH is grateful and proud to have initiated the production of this volume. The Society intends that annual meetings be held in different European countries on a rotating basis and to publish volumes related to these meetings whenever feasible. In 1988, the second conference was held in Aarhus, Denmark on "Values in Medical Decision Making and Resource Allocation in Health Care". In 1989, a meeting was held in Czestochowa, Poland, on "European Traditions in Philosophy of Medicine. From Brentano to Bieganski". It is hoped that these conferences and the books to be derived from them, will initiate a new European tradition, lasting well into the 21 st century! P. J.




Medical America in the Nineteenth Century


Book Description

Students of the history of medicine and of American history in general will welcome this collection of thirty papers originally published in nineteenth-century medical journals and lay publications. Each highlights a specific problem or medical attitude of the period, and together they present an illuminating panorama of the medical profession and of public health in nineteenth-century America. Many of the problems faced by students, practitioners, and patients of the last century are surprisingly similar to those still being encountered today. Dr. Brieger has selected papers that illustrate the issues and developments in medical education, medical practice, surgery, hospitals, hygiene, and psychiatry. They range from Benjamin Rush's "On the Cause of Death in Diseases That Are Not Incurable," to a paper by Robert F. Weir "On the Antiseptic Treatment of Wounds, and Its Results" and an article by Stephen Smith, "New York the Unclean." The final selection, the Announcement of The Johns Hopkins Medical School, stands as a landmark that foretells the beginning of a new era.




Medical Protestants


Book Description

John S. Haller,Jr., provides the first modern history of the Eclectic school of American sectarian medicine. The Eclectic school (sometimes called the "American School") flourished in the mid-nineteenth century when the art and science of medicine was undergoing a profound crisis of faith. At the heart of the crisis was a disillusionment with the traditional therapeutics of the day and an intense questioning of the principles and philosophy upon which medicine had been built. Many American physicians and their patients felt that medicine had lost the ability to cure. The Eclectics surmounted the crisis by forging a therapeutics based on herbal remedies and an empirical approach to disease, a system independent of the influence of European practices. Although rejected by the Regulars (adherents of mainstream medicine), the Eclectics imitated their magisterial manner, establishing two dozen colleges and more than sixty-five journals to proclaim the wisdom of their theory. Central to the story of Eclecticism is that of the Eclectic Medical Institute of Cincinnati, the "mother institute" of reform medical colleges. Organized in 1845, the school was to exist for ninety-four years before closing in 1939. Throughout much of their history, the Eclectic medical schools provided an avenue into the medical profession for men and women who lacked the financial and educational opportunities the Regular schools required, siding with Professor Martyn Paine of the Medical Department of New York University, who, in 1846, had accused the newly formed American Medical Association of playing aristocratic politics behind a masquerade of curriculum reform. Eventually, though, they grudgingly followed the lead of the Regulars by changing their curriculum and tightening admission standards. By the late nineteenth century, the Eclectics found themselves in the backwaters of modern medicine. Unable to break away from their botanic bias and ill-equipped to support the implications of germ theory, the financial costs of salaried faculty and staff, and the research implications of laboratory science, the Eclectics were pushed aside by the rush of modern academic medicine.




The Laboratory Revolution in Medicine


Book Description

Essays by leading researchers on the nature and genesis of laboratory medicine.