Abstract
In the health care field a major issue of concern is the widely perceived conflict of rights between professionals and their patients. Heavily debated questions such as—who should decide about specific aspects of the therapeutic encounter?—reflect a growing dissatisfaction with present models of the patient-physician relationship. Voices are calling for a renegotiation of the social contract between both parties. Some of these attempt to set limits to professional autonomy and suggest greater sharing of decision-making power between the sick and their healers.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
See a recent summary of the issues: Swazey, Judith P., Health Professionals, and the Public: Toward a New Contract?, annual oration, Philadelphia, Society for Health and Human Values, 1979.
Jonsen, Albert R. The Rights of Physicians: a Philosophical Essay, Washington, DC, National Academy of Sciences, 1978.
This has been recognized by L. B. McCullough in the article “Historical perspectives on the ethical dimensions of the patient-physician relationship: the medical ethics of Dr. John Gregory,” Ethics in Science and Medicine 5 (1978): 47–53.
The effects of sickness have been lucidly described in Eric J. Cassel’s book The Healer’s Art: A New Approach to the Doctor-Patient Relationship, Philadelphia, Lippincott, 1976.
For further details consult: Foster, George M., and Anderson, Barbara Gallatin. “Some Characteristics of doctor and patient roles,” in Medical Anthropology, New York, Wiley, 1978, pp. 103–104.
A useful summary can be found in Ackerknecht, E. H. “Typical aspects of primitive medicine,” in Medicine and Ethnology, ed. by H. H. Walser and H. M. Koelbing, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1971, pp. 17–29.
See Webster, Hutton. Taboo, a Sociological Study, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1942, especially Chapter I, pp. 22–24.
Boas, Franz. “Shamanism,” in The Religion of the Kwakiutl Indians, part II, translations, New York, Columbia University Press, 1930, p. 13.
See Temkin, O. “Medicine and the problem of moral responsibility,” Bull Hist. Med. 23 (1949): 3.
For an overview consult Edelstein, L. “The Hippocratic physician,” in Ancient Medicine, ed. by O. and C. L. Temkin, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1967, pp. 87–110.
An excellent discussion of this subject is Kudlien, F. “The old Greek concept of ‘relative health,’ ” J. Hist. Beh. Sci. 9 (1973): pp. 53–59.
“Precepts” in Hippocrates, with an English transl. by Jones, W. H. S. 4 vols, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, Vol. I, p. 317.
A discussion of fees can be found in Temkin, O. “Medical ethics and honoraria in late antiquity,” in Healing and History, edited by C. E. Rosenberg, New York, Watson, 1979, pp. 6–26.
“Precepts,” in Hippocrates, Vol. I p. 319.
Entralgo, P. Lain. Doctor and Patient, transl. from Spanish by F. Partridge, New York, McGraw Hill, 1969, especially pp. 17-23 stresses philanthropia.
Bulger, Roger. “Introduction,” in Hippocrates Revisted; a Search for Meaning, New York, Medcom, 1973, p. 3.
Edelstein, Ludwig. The Hippocratic Oath; Text, Translation and Interpretation, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1943 (Supplement to the Bulletin of the History of Medicine No. 1).
See the discussion presented by Kudlien, F. “Medical ethics and popular ethics in Greece and Rome,” Clio Medica 5 (1970): 91–121.
“The Physician,” in Hippocrates, Vol. II, P. 313.
“Precepts” in Hippocrates., Vol. I, p. 325.
Amundsen, D. W. “The physician’s obligation to prolong life: a medical duty without classical roots,” Hastings Ctr. Rep. 8 (1978): 23–30.
“Decorum,” in Hippocrates, Vol. II, p. 287.
See Ell, S. R. “Concepts of disease and the physician in the early Middle Ages,” Janus 65 (1978): 153–165.
Arnald of Villanova, “On the precautions that physicians must observe,” in Ethics in Medicine, Historical Perspectives and Contemporary Concerns, ed. by S. J. Reiser, A. J. Dyck, and W. J. Curran, Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press, 1977, p. 14.
Jones, W. H. S. “From the Oath according to Hippocrates in so far as a Christian may swear it,” in Ethics in Medicine, Historical Perspectives and Contemporary Concerns, ed. by S. J. Reiser, A. J. Dyck, and W. J. Curran, Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press, 1977, p. 10.
Etzioni M. M. The Physician’s Creed, Springfield, 111., Thomas, 1973, pp. 33–34.
Bullough, V. L. “Medical Bologna and the development of medical education,” Bull. Hist. Med. 32 (1958): 201–215.
For a more complete view of the professionalization process in medicine consult the same author. The Development of Medicine as a Profession, Basel, Karger, 1966.
See Cosman, M. P. “Medical fees, fines, and forfeits in medieval England,” Man & Medicine 1 (1976): 135–144.
On the subject of medical fees in medieval Britain consult: Hammond, E. A. “Income of medieval English doctors.” J. Hist. Med. 15 (1960): 154–169.
Hammond, E. A. “Income of medieval English doctors.” J. Hist. Med. 15 (1960): p. 152.
See also by the same author “Medieval medical malpractice: the dicta and the dockets,” Bull. NY Acad. Med. 49 (1973): 22–47.
Amundsen, D. W. “Medical deontology and pestilential disease in the late Middle Ages,” J. Hist. Med. 32 (1977): 403–421.
See Campbell, Anna M. The Black Death and Men of Learning, New York, Columbia University Press, 1931, p. 3.
This situation is explained through quotations from another medieval French surgeon, Henri de Mondeville (1260–1320) in Welborn, M. C. “The long tradition: a study in fourteenth-century medical deontology,” in Medieval and Historiographical Essays in Honor of James Westfall Thompson, ed. byCate, J. L., and Anderson, E. N. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1938, p. 351.
A sociological analysis of the medical patronage system is Jewson, N. D. “Medical knowledge and the patronage system in 18th century England,” Sociology 8 (1974): 369–385.
For details see Hamilton, B. “The medical professions in the eighteenth century,” Econ. Hist. Rev. 4 (1951): 141–170
Parry, Noel and Jose. “From apothecary to general practitioner: a successful struggle for upward assimilation and occupational closure 1790–1858,” in The Rise of the Medical Profession, London, Croom, 1976, pp. 104–130.
A general panorama of 18th century medical systems is presented in King, L. S. “Theory and practice in 18th century medicine,” Stud. Voltaire 18th Cent. 153 (1976): 1201–1218.
More details on the medical systems of Cullen and Brown can be found in King, Lester S. “Of fevers,” in The Medical World of the Eighteenth Century, Chicago, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1958, pp. 139–147.
A special article on John Brown is Risse, G. B. “The Brownian system of medicine: its theoretical and practical implications,” Clio Medica 5 (1970): 45–51.
Waddington, I. “The development of medical ethics—a sociological analysis,” Med. Hist. 19 (1975): 36–51.
Gregory, John. Observations on the Duties and Offices of a Physican; and on the method of prosecuting enquiries in philosophy, London, Strahan and Cadell, 1770, pp. 9–10.
Gregory, John. Observations on the Duties and Offices of a Physican; and on the method of prosecuting enquiries in philosophy, London, Strahan and Cadell, 1770, pp. 18 - 19.
Gregory’s “sympathy” was based on the philosopher David Hume’s notion that this faculty was something we all possessed to get an impression of another person’s character. For detail see McCullough, L. B.,” op.cit., pp. 48–50.
Consult the historical introduction written by C. R. Burns to a reprint of Percival Thomas. Medical Ethics, Huntington, N. Y., Krieger, 1975, pp. XIII–XXVII.
C. R. Burns to a reprint of Percival Thomas. Medical Ethics, Huntington, N. Y., Krieger, 1975, III, p. 72.
C. R. Burns to a reprint of Percival Thomas. Medical Ethics, Huntington, N. Y., Krieger, 1975, XXIX, pp. 107–108.
Volz, Robert. Der aerztliche Beruf, Berlin, Luederitz, 1870, p. 32–33.
Pagel, Julius L. Medicinische Deontologie: Ein Kleiner Katechismus für angehende Praktiker, Berlin, Coblentz, 1897.
Wolff, Jacob. Der practische Arztund sein Beruf, Vademecum fuer angehende Practiker, Stuttgart, Enke, 1896.
Pagel, Julius L. Medicinische Deontologie: Ein Kleiner Katechismus für angehende Praktiker, Berlin, Coblentz, 1897., p. 49.
Schmidt, Heinrich. Streiflichter ueber die Stellung des Arztes in der Gegenwart, Berlin, 1884, p. 32.
For more details consult Fischer, Alfons. Geschichte des deutschen Gesudheutswesen 2 vol., Berlin, Rothacker, 1933.
Pagel, Julius L. Medicinische Deontologie: Ein Kleiner Katechismus für angehende Praktiker, Berlin, Coblentz, 1897., p.
Dessoir, Max. “Arzt und Publikum,” Zukunft 9 (1984): 511.
Vierordt, H. “Arzt und Patient,” Deutsche Revue 18 3 (1893): 110.
Mendelsohn, Martin. Aerztliche Kunst und Medizinische Wissenschaft, 2nd ed., Wiesbaden, Bergmann, 1894, p. 43.
See McCullough, L. B. op. cit., p. 53.
For example, Friedson, E. “Client control and medical practice,” Amer. J. Sociol. 65 (1960): 374–382,
Zola, I. K. “Medicine as an institution of social control,” in A Sociology of Medical Practice, ed. by Cox, C. and Mead, M. London, Collier-Macmillan, 1975, pp. 170–185.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1982 HUMANA Press Inc.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Risse, G.B. (1982). Patients and Their Healers. In: Bell, N.K. (eds) Who Decides?. Contemporary Issues in Biomedicine, Ethics, and Society. Humana Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-5823-0_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-5823-0_2
Publisher Name: Humana Press
Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-5825-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-4612-5823-0
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive