© The Author [2006]. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
Plagues, Morality and the Place of Medicine in Early Modern England*
London School of Economics
Plague was a harsh trial for early modern communities. Responding to he heavy toll of sickness and death presented tough ethical problems: Who must act? What risks must they accept? This paper examines the role and obligations of English medical practitioners during epidemics. It focuses on the key question of whether they should stay to treat the sick or could flee to safety. Historians have often condemned doctors who fled, assuming that this was equally unacceptable to contemporaries. However, such assumptions are mistaken. While magistrates and clergymen were expected to remain, medical practitioners had no special obligation to stay. Physicians' lack of specific duties reflected their economic and social position as private practitioners, and the acknowledged limits of medicine itself. At times, however, some English medical practitioners did claim special responsibilities during plagues. But this was rare, and usually related to disputes over medical regulation in London. During and after the 1665 epidemic, in particular, plague became a theme in disputes between irregular practitioners, especially chemical physicians, and the London College of Physicians. Irregular practitioners had long sought to use plagues for self-promotion and legitimisation. Now, some attempted to overturn the College's monopoly on medical practice on the same basis. To do so, they constructed an image of the epidemic as a medical emergency and a test of ability, courage and charity. To understand these claims, we need to set them against the political, economic and legal framework of medical regulation. Epidemics thus reveal the limits of early modern medical practitioners' status, and the historical and political fluidity of medical ethics.