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001 https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/72278
005 20220219180626.0
041 0 _aEnglish
042 _adc
072 7 _aMBX
_2bicssc
072 7 _aHBLW
_2bicssc
072 7 _aHBJD1
_2bicssc
100 1 _aWorboys, Michael
_4auth
245 1 0 _aChapter 1 The non-patient’s view
260 _aManchester
_bManchester University Press
_c2021
300 _a1 electronic resource (28 p.)
506 0 _aOpen Access
_2star
_fUnrestricted online access
520 _aSince Roy Porter’s pioneering work on the ‘patient’s view’, historians have taken up the challenge to rewrite medicine’s past ‘from below’. However, this chapter argues that they have not been radical enough and have neglected a key part of Porter’s agenda for the new social history of medicine. He wrote: ‘We should stop seeing the doctor as the agent of primary care. People took care before they took physick. What we habitually call primary care is in fact secondary care, once the sufferer has become a patient, [and] has entered the medical arena.’ In other words, the beliefs, behaviour and actions of sick people who did not go to the doctor and remained ‘non-patients’. To explore the ‘non-patient’s view’, we have to look beyond self-care and the use of proprietary remedies and alternative medicine. The sociological term of the ‘symptom iceberg’, which refers to the aches and ailments that never reach the doctor, is used as a guide. In turn, historical examples to the following responses to symptoms are discussed: doing nothing; prayer; finding information; looking to family and friends; over-the-counter medicines. The chapter suggests how historians can research the ‘non-patient’s view’, by interrogating familiar sources in new ways and finding novel sources, many of which will have previously been regarded as non-medical. Finally, the chapter considers the policy implications of this work in terms of recent attempts to ease pressures on healthcare systems that encourage people ‘not to see the doctor’ and opt for self-care.
536 _aWellcome Trust
540 _aCreative Commons
_fhttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
_2cc
_4https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
546 _aEnglish
650 7 _aHistory of medicine
_2bicssc
650 7 _a20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000
_2bicssc
650 7 _aBritish & Irish history
_2bicssc
653 _ageneral practice; non-patient’s view; over-the-counter medicines; patient’s view; self-care; self-medication; symptom iceberg
773 1 0 _0OAPEN Library ID: https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/50924
_7nnaa
856 4 0 _awww.oapen.org
_uhttps://library.oapen.org/bitstream/20.500.12657/50924/1/9781526154897_ch1.pdf
_70
_zDOAB: download the publication
856 4 0 _awww.oapen.org
_uhttps://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/72278
_70
_zDOAB: description of the publication
999 _c34096
_d34096