Therapeutic explanation and the edinburgh bloodletting controversy: Two perspectives on the medical meaning of science in the mid-nineteenth century

Medical History

Volumn 24, Issue 3, 1980, Pages 241-258

  Harley Warner, John ^a  

^a HARVARD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; HISTORY; HISTORY OF MEDICINE; HUMAN; PHLEBOTOMY; THERAPY; UNITED KINGDOM;

BLOODLETTING; HISTORY OF MEDICINE, 19TH CENT.; HUMAN; SCOTLAND; THERAPEUTICS;

EID: 0019039594     PISSN: 00257273     EISSN: 20488343     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0025727300040308     Document Type: Article

References (23)

1. John Hughes Bennett Papers, Gen 2007/, Edinburgh University Library, 1848. This collection, containing materials dated from 1841 to 1872, includes Bennett's manuscript lecture notes on the institutes of medicine, manuscript drafts of many of his published works, other lecture notes, and some correspondence.
2. Lester S. King discusses the course of this debate in his valuable study, ‘The blood-letting controversy: A study in the scientific method’, Bull. Hist. Med, 1961, 35: 1-13.
3. W. Alison, ‘Types offever and blood-letting’, Br. med J., 1865, i: 624-625, p. 624; Charles Creighton, A history ofepidemics in Britain, 2 vols., [2nd ed., London, 1894], reprinted London, Frank Cass, 1965, vol. 2, pp. 162-163; Charles Murchison, A treatise on the continued fevers of Great Britain, 2nd ed., London, Longmans, Green, 1873, p. 31.
4. Robert Christison, ‘On the changes which have taken place in the constitution of fevers and inflammations in Edinburgh during the last forty years’, Edinb. med J., 1858,3: 577-595, and 1858,4: 38-58, pp. 580-587; Murchison, note 3 above, p. 32.
5. ‘Critical analysis. Thomas Mills, An Essay on the Utility ofBlood-letting in Fever (Dublin, 1816)’, Edinb. med J., 1817, 13: 363-374; Murchison, note 3 above, p. 42; Peter H. Niebyl, ‘The English bloodletting revolution, or modern medicine before 1850’, Bull. Hist. Med, 1977, 51: 464-483.
6. One Edinburgh practitioner later recalled that “within a few months afterward blood-letting, which had been brought into vogue by the prelections and example of Dr. Gregory, then Professor of the Practice of Physic in our own university, attained its highest reputation and widest range in the care ofdiseases at large” (Christison, note 4 above, p. 580).
7. William Stokes, quoted in William Orlando Markham, Bleeding and change oftype ofdisease, London, J. Churchill, 1866, p. 18. Another Edinburgh practitioner recalled that when he began practice in 1822, “the lancet was in great vigor, and a well-employed medical man almost lived in a stream of blood. ‘Vigorous practice’ was the order of the day” (Andrew Combe, ‘On the observation of nature in the treatment of disease’, Br. for. med chir. Rev., 1846, 21: 505-524, p. 514).
8. William Stokes, ‘The address in medicine’, Br. med J., 1865, ii: 133-142, p. 134.
9. J. A. Hingeston, ‘The neglect ofthe use ofbleeding in the treatment ofsome ofthe milder ailments’, Ass. med J., 1854: 266-267, p. 266. See Robert Hardey, ‘On the general disuse of venesection in the treatment of acute disease’, Br. med J., 1863, i: 461-464, p. 462.
10. Christopher Johnson, ‘On change of type’, Edinb. med J., 1870, 15: 1054-1055. For an eighteenthcentury example of this species of explanation for therapeutic change, see John Hunter, A treatise on the blood, inflammation, and gun-shot wounds, London, George Nicol, 1794, p. 227.
11. William Norris, ‘Is there a change of type in disease?’, Br. med. J., 1867, i: 81-82, p. 81.
12. W. Turnbull, ‘On bloodletting in internal inflammations’, Edinb. med J., 1857, 3: 187-188, p. 187.
13. See James Stephens, ‘Letter to the editor. On blood-letting in internal inflammations’.1857, 3: 184-187, pp. 185-186.
14. John Hughes Bennett, On cancerous and cancroid growths, Edinburgh, Sutherland & Knox, 1849, p. 142.
15. John Hughes Bennett, ‘Lectures on molecular physiology, pathology, and therapeutics, and their application to the treatment of disease. Lecture 1. Introduction’, Lancet, 1863, i: 1-4; idem, Treatise on the oleumjecoris aselli or cod liver oil, as a therapeutic agent in certainforms ofgout, rheumatism, and scrofula; with cases, London, S. Highley, 1841, pp. 53-60.
16. William Stirling, student notebook from the physiology lectures given by John Hughes Bennett, November 1868 to March 1869, MS. 9165, National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh. See also John Hughes Bennett, ‘On the law ofmolecular elaboration in organized bodies’, Rep. Br. Ass. Advmt Sci, 1855: 119-120.
17. John Hughes Bennett, ‘On the molecular theory of organization’, Lancet, 1861, i: 504-507, p. 507. See idem, ‘On the molecular origin of the tissues’, Mthly J. med Sci, 1852, 14: 476-477; idem, ‘On the structural relation of oil to albumen in the animal economy’, Proc. roy. Soc. Edinb., 1847, 2: 136-138; idem, ‘Lectures on molecular physiology, pathology, and therapeutics, and their application to the treatment of disease. Lecture 3. The fibrous elements of the tissue’, Lancet, 1863, i: 139-141, p. 139.
18. John Hughes Bennett, ‘On inflammation as a process of abnormal nutrition, being the substance of six lectures delivered before the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh, during the summer of 1843’, Edinb. med J., 1844, 62: 24-52, and 1844, 63: 351-387, pp. 23-24. See idem, ‘Contributions to pathology and rational medicine. No. 1. Introduction. How should medicine be advanced? With a few remarks in reply to the suggestions of Dr. Forbes’, Mthly J. med Sci, 1846, 7: 20-27, p. 26.
19. John Hughes Bennett, ‘Contributions to pathology and rational medicine. No. 3. On abnormal nutrition and diseases of the blood’, Mthly J. med Sci, 1846, 7: 326-333, p. 333.
20. John Hughes Bennett, ‘Observations on the results of advanced diagnosis and pathology applied to the management of internal inflammations, compared with the effects of a former antiphlogistic treatment, and especially bloodletting’, Edinb. med J., 1857, 2: 769-796, p. 779.
21. Bennett Dowler, ‘Speculative and practical researches on the supposed duality, unity and antagonism of nature and art in the cure of diseases’, New Orl med surg. J., 1858, 15: 787-805, p. 802.
22. John Hughes Bennett, Thepresent state of the theory andpractice of medicine. An introductory lecture to the class of the institutes ofmedicine in the University ofEdinburgh Delivered November 6, 1855, Edinburgh, Sutherland & Knox, 1855, pp. 16-17.
23. W. T. Gairdner, ‘Remarks on Dr. Bennett's paper on blood-letting and antiphlogistic treatment, in the Edinburgh Medical Journal for March 1857’, Edinb. med J., 1857, 3: 197-229, p. 198.