ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Rare Appearances of Disease in British Morbid Anatomy, 1793–1827

• In Event: Rarity in Medicine 1: New Narratives

English Abstract

In his seminal work, The Morbid Anatomy of Some of the Most Important Parts of the Human Body (1793), Matthew Baillie examined “the most common, as well as many of the very rare appearances of disease in the vital and more important parts of the human body” (p. ix). For Baillie, incorporating rare appearances as part of his analysis enabled the distinction of what could be seen postmortem from what was commonly seen. In his view, once ‘morbid structure’ was better known, findings could be correlated to patient symptoms.
Following Baillie’s work dozens of British works on morbid anatomy refined the study of pathological anatomy to the point that such differentiation between common and rare appearances became undesirable. For example, in his 1827 Reports of Medical Cases Richard Bright promised his readers that ‘It will form no part of my plan … to lay before my readers a succession of striking novelties’, focusing instead solely on ‘Utility’ and the correlation of morbid findings with patient symptoms (p. viii).
Though the methods and goals of Baillie and Bright were shared, the changing status of rare appearances underlines the significant development of knowledge of morbid appearances in Britain over this 30-year period. This paper examines how the diminishing importance of differentiating rare from common appearances developed across examples like scrofula, diabetes, and dropsy. This will demonstrate the significant uplift in the general ability of British practitioners to understand morbid appearances, in turn enabling new avenues for historians to reconsider the development of pathology in this period.

Author

• Richard Bellis, University of St Andrews