Bodies Politic: Disease, Death and Doctors in Britain, 1650-1900

Roy Porter's book explores representations of the body in health, disease, and death in Britain from the mid-seventeenth to the twentieth century, highlighting the symbolic weight attached to contrasting conceptions of the healthy and diseased body and the good and the bad. It examines aspects of being ill alongside the practice of medicine, paying special attention to self-presentations by physicians, surgeons, and quacks, and to changes in practitioners' public identities over time.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 368 pages
Publication date: 15 February 2021
Publisher: Reaktion Books

Roy Porter's historical tour de force, now available in B-format paperback, delves into representations of the body in health, disease, and death in Britain from the mid-seventeenth to the twentieth century. He argues that great symbolic weight was attached to contrasting conceptions of the healthy and diseased body, which were mapped onto antithetical notions of the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly. Porter explores aspects of being ill alongside the practice of medicine, paying special attention to self-presentations by physicians, surgeons, and quacks, and to changes in practitioners' public identities over time. He also examines the wider symbolic meanings of disease and doctoring and the 'body politic'. Porter's book is packed with outrageous and amusing anecdotes portraying diseased bodies and medical practitioners alike.

Weight: 360g
Dimension: 129 x 199 x 33 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781789142792