Alannah Tomkinss Medical Misadventure in an Age of Professionalisation, 1780-1890, does justice to the richness and complexity of nineteenth-century medical lives and through collective biography effectively resists the temptation to recapitulate the trials and tribulations of medical historys great men. It is a crucial contribution to our knowledge of the affairs - quotidian and catastrophic alike - of the regular medical practitioner in Victorian Britain, and considers the making and unmaking of professional boundaries in a turbulent era. [It] is a compelling and painstakingly researched book. Reading it will repay dividends to students and scholars of nineteenth-century medicine.
Agnes Arnold-Forster, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Vol. 74, No. 2 (April 2019)
List of Figures
List of Tables
Acknowledgements
1. Introduction
2. Financial hardship: bankruptcy, insolvency, and medical charity
3. Thwarted ambition and disappointing careers? Narratives of the Indian Medical Service
4. Accident or on purpose? Neglect, incompetence, and unintentional killing
5. Crimes Against the Body: Causing harm
6. Mad Doctors: lunacy and the asylum
7. Despairing doctors: professional stress and suicide
8. Conclusion
Select Bibliography
Index