Richard J. Kahn

Diseases in the District of Maine 1772 - 1820 (eBook, ePUB)

The Unpublished Work of Jeremiah Barker, a Rural Physician in New England

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

Jeremiah Barker practiced medicine in rural Maine up until his retirement in 1818. Throughout his practice of fifty years, he documented his constant efforts to keep up with and contribute to the medical literature in a changing medical landscape, as practice and authority shifted from historical to scientific methods. He performed experiments and autopsies, became interested in the new chemistry of Lavoisier, risked scorn in his use of alkaline remedies, studied epidemic fever and approaches to bloodletting, and struggled to understand epidemic fever, childbed fever, cancer, public health, consumption, mental illness, and the "dangers of spirituous liquors." Dr. Barker intended to publish his Diseases in the District of Maine 1772-1820 by subscription - advance pledges to purchase the published volume - but for reasons that remain uncertain, that never happened. For the first time, Barker's never before published work has been transcribed and presented in its entirety with extensive annotations, a five-chapter introduction to contextualize the work, and a glossary to make it accessible to 21st century general readers, genealogists, students, and historians. This engaging and insightful new publication allows modern readers to reimagine medicine as practiced by a rural physician in New England. We know much about how elite physicians practiced 200 years ago, but very little about the daily practice of an ordinary rural doctor, attending the ordinary rural patient. Barker's manuscript is written in a clear and engaging style, easily enjoyed by general readers as well as historians, with extensive footnotes and a glossary of terms. Barker himself intended his book to be "understood by those destitute of medical science."

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Oxford University Press
• Seitenzahl: 240
• Erscheinungstermin: 30. Juli 2020
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9780190053277
• Artikelnr.: 59875737

Autorenporträt

Richard J. Kahn, M.D., M.A.C.P. Assistant Clinical Professor, Department of Medicine, Tufts University School of Medicine

Inhaltsangabe

* Foreword by John Harley Warner
* Introduction:
* Chapter 1. Jeremiah Barker: Background, Education, and Writings
* Who was Jeremiah Barker?
* Provenance of the Barker Manuscript
* Description of the Barker Manuscript
* The Medical Geography of the District of Maine, 1760-1830
* Barker's Contribution to the Medical Literature of Northern New
England
* Articles Published by Jeremiah Barker
* Yellow Fever in the District of Maine?
* Conclusion
* Chapter 2. Obtaining and Sharing Medical Literature, 1780-1820
* Medical Information by Mail
* The First United States Medical Journals and Medical Nationalism
* Problems Encountered by Early Medical Journals
* Newspapers as a Source of Medical Information
* And Last but Not Least, Books
* Conclusion
* Chapter 3. The Old Medicine and the New: why Barker wrote this
manuscript, for whom was it written, and why was it not published?
* The Importance of Observation and Recording
* Basics of Greek Medicine and Fever
* Bloodletting: The Blood Was "Sizy and Buffy"
* "Scientific Doctors" and the "Empirics"
* More Competition: Domestic and Sectarian Medicine
* Science, Institutions, Education, Framing Disease, and Cultural
Authority
* Case Reports and the Clinical Exam circa 1800
* Recording Cases, Observations, and the Numerical Method
* "Thus Sayeth Galen" Meets Cullen, Rush, and Brown
* "Intelligible to Those Who Are Destitute of Medical Science"
* Why Was Barker's Manuscript Never Published?
* Rapidly Changing Medical Theory and Philosophy: Noah Webster
* Conclusion
* Chapter 4. "Alkaline Doctor" and "A Dangerous Innovator"
* Lavoisier and the New Chemistry
* The Acid/Alkali Debates of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
* Barker, Mitchill, Septon, and the Medical Repository
* Barker's Use of Alkaline Therapy
* Chemistry, Yellow Fever, and the Contagionist/Anticontagionist Battle
* Barker the "Dangerous Innovator"
* Conclusion
* Chapter 5. Thoughts to Consider While Reading Barker's Manuscript
* Presentism, Whiggish History, the Post Hoc Fallacy, Confirmation Bias
* Holistic and Biomedical Models
* Numerical Methods and Retrospective Diagnosis
* Barker's Treatments, Therapeutic Efficacy, Bacon, and Confirmation
Bias
* Nature vs. Art in Medicine-Best Available Evidence and the Burden of
Disease
* Conclusion
* The Jeremiah Barker Manuscript Volume One
* MS V. 1, Chapter 1. Insanity and Temperance
* Mental illness and problems associated with the use of ardent spirits
* MS V. 1, Chapter 2. Early Maine Medical History Beginning in 1735
* 1780 Barker moves from Barnstable, Massachusetts to Gorham, District
of Maine
* Introduces his new community and physicians practicing in southern
Maine
* Introduces Rev. Thos. Smith's diary documenting diseases and
epidemics, 1735-1780
* 1735 N.E. epidemic of cynache maligna, putrid sore throat, as
described by Smith
* Excerpt of Dr. John Warren's 1813 article on cynache maligna or
throat distemper
* Barker discusses illnesses of the 1740s including quinsy
* MS V. 1, Chapter 3. Deaths Following Trivial Wounds and Childbed
Fever
* Barker's initial years in the District of Maine beginning 1780
* 1784-1785 unusual epidemic of serious wounds and death in men
* 1784-1785 unusual epidemic of childbed fever and deaths of women
* Discussion focusing on women with childbed fever, deaths, autopsies,
searching the literature and contacting medical peers for suggestions
* Excerpt remarks on puerperal fever By Dr. Channing, 1817
* Excerpt Dr. William DeWees on puerperal fever 1807
* MS V. 1, Chapter 4. Throat distemper, Ulcerous Sore Throat,
Scarlatina Angiosa, Cynache Maligna
* 1784: experience with throat distemper, other New England physicians
and the literature
* Excerpt on putrid sore throat by Hall Jackson (Portsmouth, New
Hampshire), 1786
* Joshua Fisher on throat distemper or scarlatina angiosa
* MS V. 1, Chapter 5. Scarlatina Angiosa, Inflammatory Fevers, Hooping
[Whooping] Cough, and Croup in Maine, 1797-1806
* 1796-1798 Scarlatina angiosa and the use of bloodletting and
blistering
* 1802-1807 Scarlatina angiosa with many comments by other physicians
* 1805 example: 17 yo woman with Scarlatina angiosa bled, blistered,
treated with alkalis
* 1774-1780 Barker's experience in Barnstable with quincy of croup, "a
kindred disease"
* 1795-1806 "hooping cough"
* MS V. 1, Chapter 6. Bloodletting for Palsy, Hemiplegia, and Other
Neurological Events
* Pneumonia in a minister who used his lancet on his parishioners
prophylactically
* Use of bloodletting in disease, prophylactically, and by native
Americans
* Excerpt on bloodletting among native Americans in "Travels in Canada
and the Indian territories, between the years of 1760 and 1776."
Alexander Henry, 1809
* Hemiplegia and apoplexy
* Excerpt of "Observations on paraplegia in adults" by Matthew Baillie,
1820
* Excerpt of "Cases of Apoplexy with Dissection," by John C. Warren,
1812
* MS V. 1, Chapter 7. Hydrophobia
* Hydrophobia, cases and review of literature
* Value of volatile alkalis to treat three people bitten by mad dogs
* MS V. 1, Chapter 8. Anasarca, Ascites, Dropsy, and Foxglove
* 1786 move from Gorham to Stroudwater section of Portland
* Cancer
* Anasarca, ascites, hydrocephalus
* MS V. 1, Chapter 9. Epidemic of Influenza, Cancer, and Tainted Veal
* Influenza or Epidemic Catarrh
* Reference to Noah Webster's History of Epidemic and Pestilential
Diseases, 1799
* Regarding Thomas Smith's and Barker's cases
* Use of alkali after Barker's experiments
* Barker communicated his ideas on the nature of fever, together with
some practical observations on the use of alkalis in fever in 1795,
to Mr. William Payne, Secretary of the Humane Society in New York,
who gave the letter to Dr. Samuel Mitchill at Columbia College.
* MS V. 1, Chapter 10. Letter to Samuel L. Mitchill in New York, May
30th 1798
* The first page of a letter to Dr. Samuel Mitchill, subsequently
published in the Medical Repository 1799, Vol. II No. II, pp.
147-152: "On the febrifuge Virtues of Lime, Magnesia and Alkaline
Salts in Dysentery, Yellow-fever and Scarlatina Anginosa. In a Letter
from Dr. Jeremiah Barker, of Portland, (Maine) dated May 30, 1798."
* The Jeremiah Barker Manuscript Volume Two
* MS V. 2, Introduction
* Chapter opens with a letter dated 20 December 1831: Dr. Samuel
Emerson, Kennebunk, Maine, having reviewed Barker's manuscript,
recommends that it be printed
* Barker's Introduction to Consumption
* MS V. 2, Chapter 1. Frequency of Consumption in Women in Recent Years
in New England
* General comments on consumption; anatomy of respiration
* MS V. 2, Chapter 2. Tracheal Consumption
* General comments on tracheal consumption
* MS V. 2, Chapter 3. Phthisis Pulmonalis, or Pulmonary Consumption
* General comments on phthisis pulmonale, or pulmonary consumption
* MS V. 2, Chapter 4. Consumption and the Deaths of Barker's Wives;
Pneumonia
* Cases of consumption beginning during Barker's pupilage
* 1775 Marries Abigail Gorham, age 25 with a history of chronic
catarrh, hemoptysis; dies in 1790 after gradually increasing illness
* 1780 Lucy Garrett of Barnstable, chronic cough with blood, dies 1787
* Discusses Ezekiel and Abner Hersey, their treatments and their
illnesses
* 1790 marries Susanna Garrett, age 21 with chronic cough, dies of
consumption 1793
* 1798 marries Miss Eunice Riggs, of Falmouth, age 25, cough with
blood, dies 1799
* 1799 Barker claims he had been "infected with the Brunonian doctrine"
but now embraces Rush, bleeding, and salivation
* MS V. 2, Chapter 5. Various Treatments for Phthisis Pulmonalis
(Consumption)
* The efficacy of cooperative means such as emetics, cathartics,
alkali, digitalis, epispastics, issues, diet, air, and exercise
* MS V. 2, Chapter 6. The Most Extraordinary Cases of Pulmonary
Affections
* Cases of pulmonary afflictions cared for by Barker in Maine
* Benjamin Rush and his treatments
* MS V. 2, Chapter 7. Brownism to Rushism or Alcohol to Blooding;
Empyema
* Excerpt from Dr. Young (1815). A practical and historical treatise on
consumptive diseases, deduced from original observations, collected
from authors of all ages.
* Historical aspects of consumption
* MS V. 2, Chapter 8. Cases of Phthisis Pulmonalis and Excerpts from
Journals
* Barker was requested to extract some of the most extraordinary cases
of
* consumption from various medical sources, such as the Medical
Repository, the Medical Museum, the New England Journal of Medicine,
the London Medical Journal, etc. not conveniently purchased or
obtained by young physicians
* MS V. 2, Chapter 9. Pulmonary Affections Removed by the Intervention
of Some Other Diseases, also by Powerful Means, and Manual Operation
[Surgery]
* Pulmonary afflictions removed by surgical intervention; several more
of Barker's cases
* Epilogue