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British Romantic Generalism in the Age of Specialism, 1870–1990

This essay explores the impact of ‘generalism’ and ‘general practice’ on the specialisation of British medicine using the case of neurology in Britain to reveal characteristics of British ‘generalist medical culture’ from 1870 to 1990. It argues that ‘generalism’ represented a particular epistemolog...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Casper, Stephen T., Welsh, Rick
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Oxford University Press 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4743683/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26858515
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkv103
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author Casper, Stephen T.
Welsh, Rick
author_facet Casper, Stephen T.
Welsh, Rick
author_sort Casper, Stephen T.
collection PubMed
description This essay explores the impact of ‘generalism’ and ‘general practice’ on the specialisation of British medicine using the case of neurology in Britain to reveal characteristics of British ‘generalist medical culture’ from 1870 to 1990. It argues that ‘generalism’ represented a particular epistemological position in Victorian medicine, one that then created a natural bridge between science and medicine over which almost all physicians and scientists were comfortable walking. The legacies of that Victorian ‘generalist preference’ exerted an enduring impact on the specialisation process as physicians experienced it in the twentieth century and as this case of neurology reveals so clearly. Neurologists and general physicians would still be arguing about the relative merits of a general medical education into the 1980s. By then, however, the emergence of government bodies promoting specialist labour conditions would have rendered the process seemingly inexorable.
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spelling pubmed-47436832016-02-08 British Romantic Generalism in the Age of Specialism, 1870–1990 Casper, Stephen T. Welsh, Rick Soc Hist Med Original Articles This essay explores the impact of ‘generalism’ and ‘general practice’ on the specialisation of British medicine using the case of neurology in Britain to reveal characteristics of British ‘generalist medical culture’ from 1870 to 1990. It argues that ‘generalism’ represented a particular epistemological position in Victorian medicine, one that then created a natural bridge between science and medicine over which almost all physicians and scientists were comfortable walking. The legacies of that Victorian ‘generalist preference’ exerted an enduring impact on the specialisation process as physicians experienced it in the twentieth century and as this case of neurology reveals so clearly. Neurologists and general physicians would still be arguing about the relative merits of a general medical education into the 1980s. By then, however, the emergence of government bodies promoting specialist labour conditions would have rendered the process seemingly inexorable. Oxford University Press 2016-02 2015-10-14 /pmc/articles/PMC4743683/ /pubmed/26858515 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkv103 Text en © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for the Social History of Medicine. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Original Articles
Casper, Stephen T.
Welsh, Rick
British Romantic Generalism in the Age of Specialism, 1870–1990
title British Romantic Generalism in the Age of Specialism, 1870–1990
title_full British Romantic Generalism in the Age of Specialism, 1870–1990
title_fullStr British Romantic Generalism in the Age of Specialism, 1870–1990
title_full_unstemmed British Romantic Generalism in the Age of Specialism, 1870–1990
title_short British Romantic Generalism in the Age of Specialism, 1870–1990
title_sort british romantic generalism in the age of specialism, 1870–1990
topic Original Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4743683/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26858515
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkv103
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