Visiting a doctor in the 21st century isn’t fun,
but visiting a doctor in Regency England was often life threatening, and your treatment
depended on how much you could afford to pay.
This is why home remedies were tried before the doctor was summoned. There were three medical practitioners
functioning during the time of Regency England.
Physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries, but I think midwives should also
have a place and have included them below.
Doctors
We shall begin with the physicians, who are considered to
have better training and experience. The
physician often came from a genteel background. They were the second or third sons of a
gentleman. The doctors attended
prestigious schools and earned their degree at a university. These universities were associated with
various hospitals. Their training did
not include an apprenticeship, nor did they practice on actual patients. A doctor’s education consisted of listening
to medical procedures taught in a lecture hall.
Doctors were considered expensive and hired by the members
of the aristocracy. They also liked to
be paid in a discreet manner, since theoretically, gentlemen did not accept
money for work. Only physicians that
were licensed by the Royal College of Physicians were addressed by the title of
doctor. If a doctor was staying with a
family, he was likely to be invited to dine with them.
Surgeons
Surgeons were not regarded as highly as doctors, nor were
they like the surgeons of today.
Surgeons in Regency England were more like general practitioners, and
usually had an apprenticeship under a doctor.
In 1815, the laws of apprenticeship changed to require a five-year
apprenticeship and a six-month training course to receive a license as a
surgeon, prior to this they were not very educated. Most surgeons of the period learned from on
the job training. Medical knowledge at
the time was obtained through trial and error, where experiments were conducted
and observations were made and noted in journals. These medical journals were a source of
knowledge for those in the medical field, unfortunately these journals were
expensive, so poorer doctors often shared the subscription and passed the
journals amongst each other.
Surgery was performed without anesthesia, and was usually
limited to amputation or noninvasive surgeries, like cyst removal. Ether wasn’t discovered until 1842. Before this time, people who needed surgery
were given large does of alcohol, opium, cannabis, or mandrake, which were not
very effective. Less effective measures
of pain relief were ice, hypnosis, bloodletting, and nerve compression. If the pain didn’t kill you, then an
infection might, since the chances of dying from infection were very high. Because the surgeons performed amputations,
and lacked the university education, they were seen below doctors in social
circles, and thus if staying with a family he would likely dine with the upper
servants.
Apothecary
Apothecaries were considered the poor man’s doctor. They were apprenticed to learn about
drugs. In essence, they were Regency
pharmacists and deemed as tradesmen. But
in villages or rural areas, where doctors were scarce, it was the apothecary
who would come to your home to treat you.
The problem was that many of these elixirs given for treatment were
toxic. See my early blog on Drugs and
Addiction. Apothecaries were seen even
further down on the social scale and fall beneath the surgeons. An apothecary’s chance of staying to eat with
the family was slim, but he would dine with the servants, if invited at all.
Midwives and Women
Women during the era acted as midwives, nurses, and herbal
healers. But during the Regency, more
men began to enter into midwifery. Midwives
delivered the majority of babies.
Forceps had been invented by this time for difficult births, but female
midwives often wouldn’t use them, while the males would. Cases of childbed fever increased, due to forceps
use. C-sections were rarely used because
of the high rate of infection. An
obstructed baby would be killed and removed in pieces. If the mother died, they would try to save
the baby, but the procedure had to be done quickly or the baby wouldn’t receive
oxygen. Husbands were often consulted
before these life or death tactics were taken.
A few doctors were knighted for doctoring the royal family,
and although the aristocracy hired doctors, they did not invite them to their
parties. Most of the doctors treated
patients in towns and villages, and they rarely visited the hospitals. People were often treated inside of their
home. The hospitals were mostly located
in the cities, and not used by the majority of the population. Hospitals were considered places of
contagion.
Items used by a Regency doctor often included the black
leather medical bag, lancets, scalpels, syringes, and bleeding cups. The Frenchman, René Laennec, invented the
stethoscope during the Regency era in 1816.
Hand washing and changing bandages were not concerns, so illnesses often
spread or caused infections. You can see
more on medical treatments by referring to my blog on Leeches and Bloodletting.
Although medicine was hit or miss, new medicines were
discovered, such as quinine, calamine, proven herbal remedies, and others. Edward Jenner improved upon the small pox
vaccination during the Regency, making it the first infectious disease to be restrained
in this manner.
A special thanks to thebeaumonde.com and Roy and Lesley
Adkins, Jane Austen’s England and romancingthepast.com
http://www.lahilden.com/index.php?categoryid=6&p2_articleid=133
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