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old hand
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old hand
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My sidekick Andy was more than usually bothersome this weekend because he was trying to answer this question... "What was Doctor Watson's specialty?" It was written by Doyle that Watson spent several years in medical school. All students of medical study in Sherlock's time acquired a specialty. Andy and his bunch of book nerd friends find delight in finding answers to unrecorded aspects of the lives of fictional characters like Watson and Holmes. Question: Is Andy and his nerd friends Appolonian or Dionysian, Aristotelian or Platonist, or do they just need to go out and buy some decent clothes and find some nice girls? PS: Today Andy is trying to find out if the fictional version of the story of Tom Dooley is truer than the true version of his hanging as reported by "Doc" Watson, the famouser one. (Right Musick? Consuelo?). http://www.geocities.com/Nashville/3448/tom.html
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Joined: Jan 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Dear milum: It's been many years since I read the Sherlock Holmes stories, but I simply
cannot remember any mention of Dr. Watson having any patients, nor any mention of
his having any specialty. Of course none of his patients could bother him with phone
calls. Wonder how he paid his bills.
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old hand
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old hand
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Damnit Bill, you are turning into a nerd like Andy. Go out and buy yourself some nice new clothes and find yourself a nice new girl or you'll become a computer nerd like Andy. These people are MAKE-BELIEVE and you, so far, are not.
Remember, you are my hero,
Milo.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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What was Doctor Watson's specialty?
He was an army doctor in Afghanistan, so he was probably pretty GP.
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Joined: Sep 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Did GPs have to have much training? I was under the impression that in the 19th century it wasn't very difficult to become a GP.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2002
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Watson's patients and practice are mentioned occasionally, in fact I seem to remember that at least one of them led directly to a case for Holmes.
It's coincidence that I mentioned Holmes and philosophy in another thread today before reading this one. I looked to see if there could have been some subliminal connection made, but the timings seem wrong.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I looked to see if there could have been some subliminal connection [whisper] Hear that, guys? It's working! [/whisper] <eg>
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member
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"Wonder how he paid his bills."
Maybe he was Holmes's cocaine dealer.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Did GPs have to have much training? I was under the impression that in the 19th century it wasn't very difficult to become a GP. asks Dub-Dub.
Well, it all depends which end of the C19 you are talking about, really. It was a century of great change in more or less all areas of society, including both medical science, and the art of doctoring. C18 doctors were looked upon pretty much as craftsmen, not as professionals. (You will be able, of course, to find specific examples to "disprove this statement - however, as a general rule it is true enough.)
The doctors spent a lot of time and effort in the last years of the C17 and first half of the C19 in becoming accepted as professionals. Various professional bodies were formed, The Lancet was published, and medical schools were founded in England, so that one no longer had to go to Germany France, or (God Forbid!!) Edinburgh for training. Examinations were instituted, and eventually, legislation was passed requiring all practitioners to be qualified. Barbers were no longer allowed to practise simple surgery; pharmacists had to have passed exams, as had physicians and surgeons.
So, by about 1860/70-ish, new doctors arriving on the scene had passed exams whereas those who had started practice in the 1820s had not necessarily done so.
The Afghan Wars were in 1838 & 1840, and one might assume with some confidence that Watson was a young man when he went. As he had been to medical school (quite probably Edinburgh, which was (and is) a centre of medical excellence) it is likely that he had taken formal examinations, but is highly unlikely that he had any particular speciality, I think - except perhaps the repair of torn tissue and the relief of fever. A few soliders suffered from the former, nearly all of them suffered from the latter, which killed many more troops than did the enemies bullets.
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Joined: Sep 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Thanks, Rhubarb, for your mini-essay on medical training in the 19C!  Very enjoyable reading there.
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