Stanley Finger uncovers the instrumental role that Benjamin Franklin—scientist, inventor, publisher, and statesman—played in the development of the healing arts, giving preventive and bedside medicine, hospital care, and even personal hygiene a modern look that changed the face of medical care in both America and Europe.

Doctor Franklin's Medicine

Stanley Finger

2006 | 400 pages | Cloth $55.00
American History | Science | General
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Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction: Benjamin Franklin's Enlightened Medicine

PART I. THE COLONIST AND MEDICINE
1. Poor Richard's Medicine
2. In Praise of Exercise
3. The Smallpox Wars
4. The Citizen and the Hospital
5. Electricity and the Palsies
6. Electricity, Mental Disorders, and a Modest Proposal

PART II. MEDICINE IN GREAT BRITAIN
7. Friends and Medical Connections
8. Scotland and the First American Medical School
9. Colds, the Weather, and the Invisible World
10. Fresh Air and Good Health
11. The Perils of Lead

PART III. LE DOCTEUR IN FRANCE
12. French Medicine and Health Imperatives
13. The Folly of Mesmerism
14. From Music Therapy to the Music of Madness

PART IV. OLD AGE, ILLNESSES, AND THE DOCTOR'S DEATH
15. Bifocals and the Aging Inventor
16. Skin and "Scurf "
17. The Gout as Your Friend?
18. A Debilitating Stone
19. The Limits of Medicine
Epilogue: Franklin's Medical Legacy

Notes
Index