Physician Heal Thyself: Medical Practitioners of Eighteenth-Century New York (American University Studies Series IX, History)

Medicine in eighteenth-century New York was practiced by rational physicians, empirics, and quacks whose varied backgrounds frustrate all attempts to portray the typical New York physician of the time. Physician Heal Thyself presents a group portrait that explores the similarities and differences in the education and medical practices of its subjects, including their patient care. Particular attention is given to rational physicians’ efforts to upgrade medical standards by promoting legislation, a medical society, a medical school, a hospital dispensary, and a code of ethics. By comparing the different practitioners’ medical techniques, this book shows how a combination of Old and New World standards and practices fostered a new type of medicine that was typically American. Physician Heal Thyself will be of interest to American historians, regional historians, and medical practitioners.