Practitioners' Income and Provision for the Poor: Parish Doctors in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries (2005)
By the beginning of the nineteenth century, contracts between surgeon-apothecaries and parishes to provide medical care for the poor were replacing bills by item of service. Such agreements were not only an important source of income for practitioners, but also provided a means by which parishes could predict and limit medical spending. This article is a regional study of provision for the poor in east Bedfordshire in the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. By the beginning of the second decade of the nineteenth century, almost three-quarters of parishes in east Bedfordshire were engaged in contractual arrangements with local surgeon-apothecaries to provide a range of services. Remuneration of practitioners, the geographical concentration of poor law practices, and the changing nature of contracts, are all assessed. Interpretation is also undertaken in relation to the status of practitioners, length of service, levels of competition, and how much the contract was worth in real terms to practitioner and parish. It is concluded that the medical market in east Bedfordshire was competitive and that many practitioners used poor law contracts as a means to keep out rivals.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Book
Michael Whitfield;
(2016)
The Dispensaries: Healthcare for the Poor Before the NHS
(/isis/citation/CBB521217660/)
Book
Wray, Matt;
(2006)
Not Quite White: White Trash and the Boundaries of Whiteness
(/isis/citation/CBB001021028/)
Book
Geary, Laurence M.;
(2004)
Medicine and Charity in Ireland, 1718--1851
(/isis/citation/CBB000550650/)
Article
Pencak, William;
(2012)
Free Health Care for the Poor: The Philadelphia Dispensary
(/isis/citation/CBB001200546/)
Article
Lawrenson, Ross;
(2004)
Medical Practice in New Zealand (1769--1860)
(/isis/citation/CBB000932432/)
Book
McCrae, Morrice;
(2007)
Physicians and Society: A History of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh
(/isis/citation/CBB000930551/)
Article
Seligardi, Raffaella;
(2007)
Between Grocers and Physicians: Pharmacists, the New Chemistry, and Institutional Reforms in Bologna during the Napoleonic Period
(/isis/citation/CBB000771390/)
Article
Gafner, Lina;
Ritzmann, Iris;
Weikl, Katharina;
(2011)
Gesundheitsmarkt in ärztlichen Praxisjournalen des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts. Eine Einführung
(/isis/citation/CBB001252178/)
Book
Chao, Yüan-ling;
(2009)
Medicine and Society in Late Imperial China: A Study of Physicians in Suzhou, 1600--1850
(/isis/citation/CBB001221369/)
Article
Levene, Alysa;
Siena, Kevin;
(2013)
Reporting Dirt and Disease: Child Ill-health in Eighteenth-Century England
(/isis/citation/CBB001320812/)
Book
Paolo Gerbaldo;
(2023)
Arte salutare e inoculazione antivaiolosa. Il medico Vincenzo Sacchetti nel Piemonte napoleonico e sabaudo
(/isis/citation/CBB270333362/)
Book
Vale, Brian;
Edwards, Griffith;
(2011)
Physician to the Fleet: The Life and Times of Thomas Trotter 1760--1832
(/isis/citation/CBB001250120/)
Book
Mayhew, Henry;
Sabbagh, Karl;
(2011)
Voices of Victorian London: In Sickness and in Health
(/isis/citation/CBB001250951/)
Article
Arnold, David J.;
(2012)
The Medicalization of Poverty in Colonial India
(/isis/citation/CBB001213112/)
Article
King, Steven;
(2005)
“Stop This Overwhelming Torment of Destiny”: Negotiating Financial Aid at Times of Sickness under the English Old Poor Law, 1800--1840
(/isis/citation/CBB000630125/)
Chapter
Weindling, Paul;
(2011)
“Our Racial Friends'”: Disease, Poverty and Social Darwinism, 1860--1940
(/isis/citation/CBB001202031/)
Article
Murphy, Elaine;
(2003)
The New Poor Law Guardians and the Administration of Insanity in East London, 1834--1844
(/isis/citation/CBB000630192/)
Article
Sharpe, Pamela;
(2012)
Explaining the Short Stature of the Poor: Chronic Childhood Disease and Growth in Nineteenth-Century England
(/isis/citation/CBB001320058/)
Article
Hurren, Elizabeth T.;
(2005)
Poor Law versus Public Health: Diphtheria, Sanitary Reform, and the “Crusade” against Outdoor Relief, 1870--1900
(/isis/citation/CBB000770550/)
Book
Gründler, Jens;
(2013)
Armut und Wahnsinn. “Arme Irre” und ihre Familien im Spannungsfeld von Psychiatrie und Armenfürsorge in Glasgow, 1875--1921
(/isis/citation/CBB001451893/)
Be the first to comment!