Alannah Tomkins

This book studies the negative stereotypes around the women who worked as sick nurses in this period and contrasts them with the lived experience of both domestic and institutional nursing staff. Furthermore, it integrates nursing by men into the broader history of care as a constant if little-recognised presence. It finds that women and men undertook caring work to the best of their ability, and often performed well, despite multiple threats to nurse reputations on the grounds of gender norms and social status. Chapters consider nursing in the home, in general hospitals, in specialist institutions like the Royal Chelsea Hospital and asylums, plus during wartime, illuminated by multiple accounts of individual nurses. In these settings, it employs the sociological concept of ‘dirty work’ to contextualise the challenges to nurses and nursing identities.

This book looks at medical professionalisation from a new perspective, one of failure rather than success. It questions the existing picture of broad and rising medical prosperity across the nineteenth century to consider the men who did not keep up with professionalising trends. It unpicks the life stories of men who could not make ends meet or who could not sustain a professional persona of disinterested expertise, either because they could not overcome public accusations of misconduct or because they struggled privately with stress. In doing so it uncovers the trials of the medical marketplace and the pressures of medical masculinity. All professionalising groups risked falling short of rising expectations, but for doctors these expectations were inflected in some occupationally specific ways.

This comparative study of urban poverty is the first to chart the irregular pulse of poverty’s encounters with officialdom. It exploits an unusual methodology to secure new perspectives from familiar sources. The highly localised characteristics of the welfare economy generated a peculiarly urban environment for the poor. Separate chapters examine the parameters of workhouse life when the preconceptions of contemporaries have been stripped away; the reach of institutional charities such as almshouses, schools and infirmaries; and the surprisingly broad clientele of urban pawnbrokers. Detailed analysis of the poor is achieved via meticulous matching of individuals who fell within the purview of two or more authorities. The result is a unique insight into the survival economics of urban poverty, arising not from a tidy network of welfare but from a loose assembly of options, where the impoverished positioned themselves repeatedly to fit official, philanthropic, or casual templates of the ‘deserving’. This book will be essential reading for historians of English poverty and welfare, and eighteenth-century social and economic life.

This book studies the negative stereotypes around the women who worked as sick nurses in this period and contrasts them with the lived experience of both domestic and institutional nursing staff. Furthermore, it integrates nursing by men into the broader history of care as a constant if little-recognised presence. It finds that women and men undertook caring work to the best of their ability, and often performed well, despite multiple threats to nurse reputations on the grounds of gender norms and social status. Chapters consider nursing in the home, in general hospitals, in specialist institutions like the Royal Chelsea Hospital and asylums, plus during wartime, illuminated by multiple accounts of individual nurses. In these settings, it employs the sociological concept of ‘dirty work’ to contextualise the challenges to nurses and nursing identities.

'Twenty-first century medicine is just the current stage of a never-ending journey of tremendous complexity. Those of us who are fortunate enough to practise in this day and age do so in ways that are themselves the results of huge changes over many centuries - advances in areas such as medication and surgical and imaging techniques and developments in our understanding of the human body and its attendant threats through genetics. Add to that list the huge social and societal changes in public health, attitudes to illness and changes in ethical viewpoints, and we find ourselves at the current forefront of medical evolution but nowhere near the end of this particular journey.' From the Foreword by Paul Lazarus This fascinating book brings to life the history of medicine in Britain since 1600. Throughout the historical account the authors cover mainstream clinical issues but also make reference to the importance of literature and art, presenting a wide-ranging view of the past. It also incorporates milestones in other cultures and epochs, where appropriate, for a balanced overview. The concise, self-contained sections are a joy to read and can be easily dipped into. The majority of chapters include suggested questions for students, assisting group discussion. It is ideal for medical and healthcare course organisers, lecturers and tutors who require a rapid resource of information in their subject area - be it cardiovascular disease, emergency medicine or child protection - to provide context, interest and entertainment for their students. It is also highly recommended as the basis for a programme of seminars on the history of medicine.

Presents narratives of the poor in eighteenth-century Britain. This collection covers the period from the early eighteenth century through to the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 and includes transcriptions of hand-written first-hand representations of poverty to poor law officials.

Presents narratives of the poor in eighteenth-century Britain. This collection covers the period from the early eighteenth century through to the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 and includes transcriptions of hand-written first-hand representations of poverty to poor law officials.

Presents narratives of the poor in eighteenth-century Britain. This collection covers the period from the early eighteenth century through to the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 and includes transcriptions of hand-written first-hand representations of poverty to poor law officials.

Presents narratives of the poor in eighteenth-century Britain. This collection covers the period from the early eighteenth century through to the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 and includes transcriptions of hand-written first-hand representations of poverty to poor law officials.

Presents narratives of the poor in eighteenth-century Britain. This collection covers the period from the early eighteenth century through to the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 and includes transcriptions of hand-written first-hand representations of poverty to poor law officials.