What Kind of Work Did Scottish surgeons do int he Eighteenth Century?
Dr
Ursula Mulcahy, MA (Durham) FRCSE
Department
of Philosophy, University of Durham.
Bioethics/Philosophy
of Medicine Reading Group (BPMRG)
28
April 2015
4:00
pm
Elvet
Riverside, Room 201
This
work is based on the probate records of 237 surgeons and surgeon apothecaries
who died between 1700 and 1799. Sixty three of the probate records contained an
inventory of the deceased’s possessions. Analysis of the records shows that surgeons
and surgeon-apothecaries provided most of the medical care in Scotland in the
eighteenth century and that most men practiced without being members of the
Edinburgh College of Surgeons or the Glasgow College of Physicians and
Surgeons. All of them were equipped to make and dispense drugs and for many,
this was probably their main source of income. Outside of the large towns and
cities surgeons and surgeon-apothecaries often had other occupations, the
commonest of which was farming. Only a minority of surgeons did operative
surgery but there was an elite group of wealthy surgeons who were trained and
equipped to do the more complex types of surgery.
Dr
Mulcahy is a retired consultant surgeon. She is currently reading PhD at
Durham that addresses medicine and science during the Scottish Enlightenment.
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