Chapter 16 Surgery and Emotion

In this chapter I have endeavoured to demonstrate the ways in which an approach that takes the emotions seriously might nuance and complicate our understandings of the history of pre-anaesthetic surgery. In general, historians have tended to focus on the operations of surgical dispassion, or wha...

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Hovedforfatter: Brown, Michael
Format: Online
Sprog:engelsk
Udgivet: Springer Nature 2021
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Online adgang:1001603
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author Brown, Michael
author_browse Brown, Michael
author_facet Brown, Michael
author_sort Brown, Michael
collection Directory of Open Access Books
description In this chapter I have endeavoured to demonstrate the ways in which an approach that takes the emotions seriously might nuance and complicate our understandings of the history of pre-anaesthetic surgery. In general, historians have tended to focus on the operations of surgical dispassion, or what we might now term clinical detachment. What this research suggests, however, is that compassion and emotional expression played a surprisingly important role in shaping the cultures of early nineteenth-century operative surgery as well as the identities of its practitioners. In the decades immediately preceding the advent of anaesthesia, pain became a central concern of surgical discourse and the response to this concern was shaped by the cultures of sentiment and sensibility. However, this culture of compassion was no ‘natural’ reaction to a self-evident problem. Rather, it was a culturally and historically contingent phenomenon which could be harnessed to the ideologies and ambitions of medical reform. In the hands of men like John Bell and Thomas Wakley, the image of the surgeon as a man of refined and honest sentiment was linked to a critique of the medical and surgical ancien regime, providing an idealised representation of a more expert, meritocratic and altruistic profession.
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spelling doab-20.500.12854ir-273682025-07-21T15:58:01Z Chapter 16 Surgery and Emotion Brown, Michael History pre-anesthetic surgery thema EDItEUR::M Medicine and Nursing::MB Medicine: general issues::MBX History of medicine thema EDItEUR::M Medicine and Nursing::MN Surgery thema EDItEUR::M Medicine and Nursing::MB Medicine: general issues::MBX History of medicine thema EDItEUR::M Medicine and Nursing::MN Surgery In this chapter I have endeavoured to demonstrate the ways in which an approach that takes the emotions seriously might nuance and complicate our understandings of the history of pre-anaesthetic surgery. In general, historians have tended to focus on the operations of surgical dispassion, or what we might now term clinical detachment. What this research suggests, however, is that compassion and emotional expression played a surprisingly important role in shaping the cultures of early nineteenth-century operative surgery as well as the identities of its practitioners. In the decades immediately preceding the advent of anaesthesia, pain became a central concern of surgical discourse and the response to this concern was shaped by the cultures of sentiment and sensibility. However, this culture of compassion was no ‘natural’ reaction to a self-evident problem. Rather, it was a culturally and historically contingent phenomenon which could be harnessed to the ideologies and ambitions of medical reform. In the hands of men like John Bell and Thomas Wakley, the image of the surgeon as a man of refined and honest sentiment was linked to a critique of the medical and surgical ancien regime, providing an idealised representation of a more expert, meritocratic and altruistic profession. 2021-02-10T12:58:18Z 2018-10-02 23:55 2020-03-18 13:36:15 2020-04-01T12:21:29Z 2018 chapter 1001603 OCN: 1076650674 http://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/28354 https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/27368 eng open access image/jpeg image/jpeg image/jpeg image/jpeg n/a n/a n/a n/a https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/20.500.12657/28354/1/surgery_and_emotion.pdf https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/20.500.12657/28354/1/surgery_and_emotion.pdf https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/20.500.12657/28354/1/surgery_and_emotion.pdf https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/20.500.12657/28354/1/surgery_and_emotion.pdf Springer Nature Palgrave Macmillan 10.1057/978-1-349-95260-1_16 10.1057/978-1-349-95260-1_16 9fa3421d-f917-4153-b9ab-fc337c396b5a The Palgrave Handbook of the History of Surgery Wellcome Trust Wellcome Palgrave Macmillan 22 Basingstoke open access
spellingShingle History
pre-anesthetic surgery
thema EDItEUR::M Medicine and Nursing::MB Medicine: general issues::MBX History of medicine
thema EDItEUR::M Medicine and Nursing::MN Surgery
thema EDItEUR::M Medicine and Nursing::MB Medicine: general issues::MBX History of medicine
thema EDItEUR::M Medicine and Nursing::MN Surgery
Brown, Michael
Chapter 16 Surgery and Emotion
title Chapter 16 Surgery and Emotion
title_full Chapter 16 Surgery and Emotion
title_fullStr Chapter 16 Surgery and Emotion
title_full_unstemmed Chapter 16 Surgery and Emotion
title_short Chapter 16 Surgery and Emotion
title_sort chapter 16 surgery and emotion
topic History
pre-anesthetic surgery
thema EDItEUR::M Medicine and Nursing::MB Medicine: general issues::MBX History of medicine
thema EDItEUR::M Medicine and Nursing::MN Surgery
thema EDItEUR::M Medicine and Nursing::MB Medicine: general issues::MBX History of medicine
thema EDItEUR::M Medicine and Nursing::MN Surgery
topic_facet History
pre-anesthetic surgery
thema EDItEUR::M Medicine and Nursing::MB Medicine: general issues::MBX History of medicine
thema EDItEUR::M Medicine and Nursing::MN Surgery
thema EDItEUR::M Medicine and Nursing::MB Medicine: general issues::MBX History of medicine
thema EDItEUR::M Medicine and Nursing::MN Surgery
url 1001603
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