近代英国民间医学的衰落:一项社会史的考察

Decline of Popular Medicine in Early Modern Britain:A Study from the Perspective of Social History

民间医学在近代以前的英国传统医疗中占据重要地位,它主要是与基督教伦理连结在一起,拥有复杂的理论与诊疗实践。到了近代早期,随着社会各方面的变革,各学科、职业呈现出专业化的趋势,医学也在这期间开始其专业化的历程。这一过程大致从16世纪中后期延续至18世纪末19世纪初,以民间医学被整肃和排斥并最终衰落为主要内容。在民间医学衰落、官方正规医学逐渐占据诊疗体系主导地位的过程中,宗教、政治和文化发挥了重要作用,医学进步本身则并未在其中扮演重要角色。

Popular medicine featured prominently in traditional British medicine before early modern times.It was primarily entangled with Christianity and demonstrated complex theories and clinical practices.In the beginning of the early modern times,along with wide-ranging social transformations,the first wave of professionalization took shape in various disciplines and professions.Medicine was no exception.This period,roughly from the mid-16th century to the early 19th century,witnessed the reorganization,exclusion and consequent waning of popular medicine.With the decline of popular medicine,orthodox medicine began to predominate in the diagnostic and treatment system,which was driven substantially by religious,political and cultural factors,but not obviously by the development of medical science.