The Colonial Physician and Other Essays

Abstract

While preparing his doctoral dissertation for the PhD degree in history, Whitfield J. Bell became interested in the physicians of 18th-century Philadelphia, and his subsequent work in medical history shows how an apparently narrow focus can brilliantly illuminate a vast area. Philadelphia we can regard as a microcosm, and careful study of a small geographic region, when carried out by a master, can lead us into the whole of 18th-century medical and cultural history. Bell performed a particular service by studying especially the lesser known physicians, the practitioners of the second and even the third rank who, nevertheless, revealed clearly the cultural levels, the social problems, and the intellectual struggles of that era. The various essays here reprinted cover a wide range of subjects, written over a span of 30 years. We might note a few of the physicians discussed. In the essay on Thomas Park (1749-1835), a practitioner for

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