Reviews

“This scholarly work has been awaited with interest. It does not disappoint. Earlier historians have not neglected the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and clinical practice in the eighteenth century, but this book must be the first thorough examination of the hospital. It is clear that new primary sources have been available and that Professor Risse has been the first to turn them over… The book deliberatedly open with a human vignette which gives the introduction to the day-to-day life in the hospital and some details of ‘those desirous of entry.’…Risse’s narrative is never dull and occasionally sections can be read again simply to enjoy the author’s ability to capture a mood or use an apt phrase, or find the mot juste.”

David Hamilton, Bulletin of the History of Medicine 60 (1986): 595-96.

“Hospital Life is a tour de force of primary analysis, but pervading it is a subtle argument that becomes more pronounced as the book progresses: this hospital was indeed a worthwhile and beneficial health-care institution. With this argument, Risse challenges the generalization that the eighteenth-century hospital was a gateway to death or a death trap…While additional studies of other eighteenth-century hospitals will have to be undertaken to buttress Risse’s counterclaim fully, his own contribution must be considered a palpable blow to prevailing thought concerning hospital historiography.”

J. T. H. Connor, Canadian Bulletin of Medical History 5 (1988): 78-79.

“Histories of specific hospital institutions have far too often been no more than hagiographic accounts of local heroes, lacking appropiriate social and medico-historical contextual analysis. Recently, social historians of medicine have repaired some of these deficiencies, but in their zeal to explore their necessarily slanted hypotheses, they have ignored actual medical practice. Because he not only examines the infirmary as a product and manifestation of its economic, social and cultural environment but also gives details of the interaction of the staff and patients within its walls, Guenter Risse has written a most important book.”

Jacalyn M. Duffin, Journal of the History of Medicine 42 (Jan 1987): 97-99.

“Risse gives a fascinating and well-written description of the day-to day workings of an eighteenth-century hospital. His most important source, 808 case histories of individual patients, allows detailed consideration of their diseases and treatments…he has done the magnificent collection of records full justice.”

M. A Crowther, American Historical Review 92 (1987): 964