The Marlborough Doctors: Six Generations of One Family's Medical Practice Since 1792

The Maurices have practised medicine in Marlborough, Wiltshire for two hundred years. This book shows how the surgeon-apothecary of the eighteenth century became the general practitioner of today, in the story of one family. Based on the records of a practice which has passed from father to son since 1792, it gives insight into the enormous distances that the early practitioners travelled on horseback to visit their patients, and how little they could really help them. Marlborough was one of the first country towns to acquire a cottage hospital, which gave the family many opportunities to practise surgery at a time when physicians generally had few facilities. The two World Wars were particularly difficult times for the practice, and it was only after the Second World War that rapid advances in medicine really took place. These were experienced by the fifth doctoring generation of Maurices, and now the sixth generation are adapting again as changes in medical treatment gather momentum.