Trusting George Cheyne

Scientific Expertise, Common Sense, and Moral Authority in Early Eighteenth-Century Dietetic Medicine

Bibliographic Data

ID5845396
AuthorsSteven Shapin (corresponding author)
Year2003
Volume77
Issue2
Pages263-297
Publication date2003-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueBulletin of the history of medicine (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0007-5140 • E-ISSN: 1086-3176
PublisherProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1353/bhm.2003.0091
PMID12955961
OpenAlexW1968527505
LanguageEN
Citations received24
References cited17

Whenever physicians give directions to patients there is always a question of their authority to do so: what is it that they know, and who is it that they are, that gives them this authority? The problem is fully general, but it takes especially interesting forms in early modern dietetics, where patients were reckoned to possess much pertinent and reliable knowledge, and where medical dietetics occupied terrain already densely occupied by moral prudence. This article addresses these issues in relation to the writings and practice of George Cheyne (1671-1743), iatromechanist, dietary writer, and fashionable physician. Special attention is given to the relation between Cheyne's scientific expertise and the texture of the advice he gave to two patients, the printer and novelist Samuel Richardson and Selina, countess of Huntingdon

George (robot · Prudence · Historical and Scientific Studies · Historical Psychiatry and Medical Practices · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes

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