Punish or Treat?

About the Book

This book, the definitive account of its subject, is essential reading for those interested in medical history, criminology or social history and presents a lively and occasionally shocking account of the day-to-day work of prison medical officers in the period 1770 to 1850. Additionally it provides much of interest to the general reader, informing widely on the workings of prisons, on prison reform, on the practitioners themselves and the manner in which medicine was practiced in this period. Information has been amassed from many sources including: (1) journals kept by prison medical officers, (2) parliamentary enquiries, and (3) reports of prison inspectors. Some of these sources have never been previously studied; others have not been subjected to scrutiny from the informed medical standpoint which the author's working life in the practice of medicine makes possible.

The conclusion reached is that the prime factor motivating prison medical staff was the provision of a good standard of care. In other publications these men have received a bad press: accused of active participation in a system of control and punishment. In reality they provided care, which, so far as can be ascertained, was of the same quality as that provided to private patients, and although some treatment methods may seem primitive or even cruel to the modern reader, these were normal at the time.

The practice of medicine necessarily involves the implementation of power; in general these prison medical officers exercised that power in a correct and professional manner.

About the Author

Educated at primary school and grammar school in Sheffield, then at Balliol College Oxford and the London Hospital, the author went on to specialise in Urological surgery. Military service in the RAF was followed by further training at the London Hospital and the Institute of Urology (University of London). During this time, and in his twenty-five years as a consultant surgeon at the North Staffordshire Hospital Centre he published a number articles on such subjects as the management of acute retention of urine, the management of idiopathic retro-peritoneal fibrosis and the loin pain/haematuria syndrome - this last also being the subject of a chapter written (jointly) in a text book of genito-urinary surgery. After retirement he turned to his long-standing interest in history and after taking an MA (with distinction) went on to carry out the research necessary for a PhD on the subject of Medical Care in English Prisons: 1770-1850. Articles related to this subject have appeared in Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, British Journal of Urology International and Medical History.