MARC Record from marc_columbia

LEADER: 04880fam a2200409 a 4500
001 3973019
005 20221027012206.0
008 920402s1993 nyua b 001 0 eng c
010 $a 92012876
020 $a0195053842 (alk. paper)
035 $a(OCoLC)25676062
035 $a(OCoLC)ocm25676062
035 $9AGW0082HS
035 $a(NNC)3973019
035 $a3973019
040 $aDNLM/DLC$cDLC$dNNC-M
043 $an-us---
050 00 $aRA1022.U6$bM64 1993
060 0 $aWZ 70 AA1 M6d
082 00 $a614/.1/097309034$220
100 1 $aMohr, James C.$0http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n81112009
245 10 $aDoctors and the law :$bmedical jurisprudence in nineteenth-century America /$cJames C. Mohr.
260 $aNew York :$bOxford University Press,$c1993.
300 $axv, 319 pages :$billustrations ;$c24 cm
336 $atext$btxt$2rdacontent
337 $aunmediated$bn$2rdamedia
504 $aIncludes bibliographical references and index.
505 0 $a1. Medical Jurisprudence in the New Republic -- 2. T. R. Beck and the Elements of Medical Jurisprudence -- 3. Medical Jurisprudence as a Burgeoning Field in Early American Medical Schools -- 4. Medical Jurisprudence and American Medicine, 1820-1850 -- 5. Medical Jurisprudence and American Society, 1820-1850 -- 6. Medical Jurisprudence and the State, 1820-1850 -- 7. Medical Testimony in Court to 1860 -- 8. The Emergence of Medical Malpractice -- 9. Toxicology on Trial: The Hendrickson Case -- 10. The Implications of Insanity: From a Professional Asset to a Public Embarrassment -- 11. Medical Jurisprudence and the Civil War -- 12. The Insanity Issue after the Civil War -- 13. The Schoeppe Trials and the Wharton Case -- 14. The Crisis of the Expert Witness -- 15. Medical Examiners and Medico-Legal Societies -- 16. Medical Jurisprudence and the AMA -- 17. Medical Jurisprudence as a Dying Field in American Professional Schools.
520 $aAfter the American Revolution, the new republic's most prominent physicians envisioned a society in which doctors, lawyers, and the state would work together to ensure public well-being and a high standard of justice. By the 1830s, medical jurisprudence was being taught as an important subject in the nation's best medical schools, new medical ideas about insanity inspired major legal reforms, and legal issues stimulated medical advances. Medical malpractice suits were so rare as to be curiosities. But as James C. Mohr reveals in Doctors and the Law, by mid-century what had once appeared to be fertile ground for cooperative civic service had become a battlefield, and the relationship between doctors and the legal system became increasingly adversarial.
520 8 $aMohr provides a graceful and lucid narrative of this startling transition from civic republicanism to marketplace professionalism. He shows how, by 1900, everything had changed for the worse: doctors and lawyers were at each other's throats; medical jurisprudence had disappeared as a serious field of study for American physicians; the subject of insanity had become a legal nightmare; expert medical witnesses had become costly and often counterproductive; and an ever-increasing number of malpractice suits had intensified physicians' aversion to the courts. In short, the system we have taken largely for granted throughout the twentieth century was essentially in place, the product of a great nineteenth-century transition.
520 8 $aMohr uses a series of trials that captured the attention of the American people to illustrate key trends. In the Hendrickson trial of the 1850s, for example, what began as a trial to determine whether or not John Hendrickson had poisoned his wife Maria became a sensationalized debate - complete with a multitude of expert medical witnesses - challenging Dr. James Salisbury's ability to isolate the specific chemical used to poison Mrs. Hendrickson. And Mohr goes on to explore a variety of subjects: medical education, forensic toxicology, insanity, medical malpractice, the place of physicians in establishing American social policy, and the role of the AMA in medico-legal matters.
520 8 $aFor those who wonder about the relationship between the nation's physicians and its legal processes, here is a penetrating look at the origins of our inherited medico-legal system. Above all else, Mohr reminds us that our present system is not an inevitable product of universal forces but an outcome of specific historical circumstances in the United States and is likely to change.
650 0 $aMedical jurisprudence$zUnited States$xHistory$y19th century.
650 2 $aHistory, 19th Century.$0https://id.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/D049672
650 2 $aJurisprudence$xhistory.$0https://id.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/D007603Q000266
651 2 $aUnited States.$0https://id.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/D014481
852 00 $boff,hsl$hRA1022.U6$iM64 1993