Medicine before Science: The Business of Medicine from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment

Medicine before Science introduces the history of physicians trained at universities, from the Middle Ages up to the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. Roger French notes that these doctors enjoyed high status and rewards, yet little is known about how effective their treatments were.

To modern eyes their theories and practice often look strange. French argues that the historical evidence shows they were judged on other criteria, and that these physicians helped to shape and meet society's expectations of what a doctor should be. The book is therefore about the business of medicine as much as its ideas.

The book will suit historians of medicine and science, and readers interested in how medical careers were organised and rewarded in earlier centuries.