Genre in English Medical Writing, 1500–1820
Sociocultural Contexts of Production and Use

This multidisciplinary volume offers new insights into the development of genres of medical discourse in changing socio-cultural contexts.

Irma Taavitsainen (Edited by), Turo Hiltunen (Edited by), Jeremy J. Smith (Edited by), Carla Suhr (Edited by)

9781009100090, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 13 October 2022

320 pages
23.5 x 15.9 x 2.4 cm, 0.65 kg

Written by an interdisciplinary team of scholars, this book offers novel perspectives on the history of medical writing and scientific thought-styles by examining patterns of change and reception in genres, discourse, and lexis in the period 1500-1820. Each chapter demonstrates in detail how changing textual forms were closely tied to major multi-faceted social developments: industrialisation, urbanisation, expanding trade, colonialization, and changes in communication, all of which posed new demands on medical care. It then shows how these developments were reflected in a range of medical discourses, such as bills of mortality, medical advertisements, medical recipes, and medical rhetoric, and provides an extensive body of case studies to highlight how varieties of medical discourse have been targeted at different audiences over time. It draws on a wide range of methodological frameworks and is accompanied by numerous relevant illustrations, making it essential reading for academic researchers and students across the human sciences.

List of figures
List of tables
Notes on contributors
Acknowledgements
Preface
1. Medical discourse and sociocultural contexts 1500–1820 Irma Taavitsainen, Jeremy J. Smith, Turo Hiltunen and Carla Suhr
2. John Arderne's afterlife in manuscript and print Peter Murray Jones
3. John Mirfield's Regimen of Health Lori Jones
4. Surgical handbooks translate into Low German Chiara Benati
5. Tracing the early modern John of Burgundy Alpo Honkapohja
6. The plague in Southern Italy 1815–6 Alberto Tanturri
7. On Excitability Jeremy J. Smith
8. Systems and centos: Some eighteenth-century dictionaries Roderick McConchie
9. Medical vocabulary in English Romantic literature Jeremy J. Smith
10. Foreign ingredients in Early Modern English recipes Isabel de la Cruz-Cabanillas
11. Walter Bailey's medical genres Irma Taavitsainen
12. London bills of mortality in the seventeenth century Maura Ratia
13. Advertising proprietary medicines in pamphlets Carla Suhr
14. Persuasion in Hungarian medical recipes Agnes Kuna
15. Persuasion in Early Modern English medical recipes Martti Mäkinen
16. Richard III: Fact, Myth, Fiction Anna Ilona Rajala and Timo Uotinen
17. Images and paratexts Peter Murray Jones
Preface to the image gallery Peter Murray Jones
Index.

Subject Areas: Language: history & general works [CBX]