Cover not available
Part of
The Dynamics of Text and Framing Phenomena: Historical approaches to paratext and metadiscourse in English
Edited by Matti Peikola and Birte Bös
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 317] 2020
► pp. 233–266

Chapter 10
Paratextual features in 18th-century medical writing

Framing contents and expanding the text

ORCID logo | University of Eastern Piedmont

This study focusses on the paratextual apparatus of 18th-century medical writing, with specific reference to tables of contents, indexes, appendices and glossaries in handbooks and compendia published in the second half of the century. The analysis, carried out on a sample of relevant works of the period, investigates both the layout (structural organisation on the page), and language issues (use of English to convey meaning). In particular, the relationship between the type and function of the paratext, along with the systematisation of contents through language are at the core of the discussion. The results of the analysis highlight the relevance of basic and complex paratextual patterns in medical writing. The interaction of layout and language frames medical contents for the reader (front matter), whereas back matter expands the main text by mapping connections and dependencies (indexes), adding lists of medicines and remedies (appendices), and explanatory terminology (glossaries).

Keywords: paratext, front matter, back matter, 18th-c. medical writing, 18th-c. medical handbooks, 18th-c. lexicography, 18th-c. medical terminology.
Article outline
  • 1.Aim of the study
  • 2. Sources and method
    • Primary sources
    • Secondary sources
  • 3.Paratext
  • 4.Structure of the study
  • 5.Medicine and dissemination: Experiential and disciplinary issues in handbooks
    • 5.1Group 1.: Front matter: Basic pattern
    • 5.2Group 2. A. Front matter: Complex pattern
    • 5.3Group 2. B. Back matter: Indexes, glossaries and appendices
      • 5.3.1Indexes
      • 5.3.2Glossaries
      • 5.3.3Appendices
  • 6.Final remarks
  • Notes
  • Primary sources
  • Secondary sources
Published online: 18 November 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.317.10lon
References

Primary sources

Black, William
1788 Comparative View of the Mortality of the Human Species, at all Ages; And of the Diseases and Casualties by which they are destroyed or annoyed. Illustrated with Charts and Tables. […] Published at the unanimous Request of the Medical Society of London. London: Printed for C. Dilly, in the Poultry.Google Scholar
2nd 1789 An Arithmetical and Medical Analysis of the Diseases and Mortality of the Human Species […] Published at the unanimous Request of the Medical Society of London. The second Edition corrected and improved. London: Printed for the Author by John Crowders and sold by C. Dilly, in the Poultry.Google Scholar
Buchan, William
2nd 1772 [1st 1769] Domestic Medicine: or, A Treatise on the Prevention and Cure of Diseases by Regimen and Simple Medicines. The Second Edition, with considerable Additions. London: Printed for W. Strahan; T. Cadell in the Strand; and A. Kincaid & W. Creech, and J. Balfour, at Edinburgh.Google Scholar
17th 1800 Domestic Medicine: or, A Treatise on the Prevention and Cure of Diseases by Regimen and Simple Medicines. With an Appendix, containing a Dispensatory for the Use of Private Practitioners. To which are added, Observations on the Diet of the Common People; recommending a Method of Living less expensive, and more conducive to Health, than the present. […] London: Printed by A. Strahan, Printers Street; for A. Strahan; T. Cadell Jun. and W. Davies, Strand; and J. Balfour, and W. Creech, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Clark, John
1780 Observations on Fevers, especially those of the Continued Type; and on the Scarlet Fever attended with Ulcerated Sore-Throat, as it appeared at Newcastle upon Tyne in the Year 1778: together with A comparative View of that Epidemic with the Scarlet Fever as described by Authors, and the Angina Maligna. […] London: Printed for T. Cadell, in the Strand.Google Scholar
Fisher, J[oseph]
1785 The Practice of Medicine Made Easy. Being a Short, but Comprehensive Treatise, Necessary for Every Family. In which are exhibited the symptoms of almost every disease to which men are subject, the method of distinguishing any disease from others which it resembles, where such distinction is necessary, together with the most approved methods of cure, as to the regimen of the patient and the proper medicines to be used, so far as the Lectures of the learned Professors in the two celebrated Universities of Edinburgh and Leyden, or the books hitherto published by the most eminent Physicians in Europe, or the Author’s own judgment and experience have discovered to be most safe and beneficial, expressed in such a plain language, that it may be easily understood by persons of very moderate capacities. […] London: Printed for the Author, and sold by all the Booksellers in Great Britain and Ireland.Google Scholar
Forster, William
1745 A Treatise on the Causes of most Diseases incident to Human Bodies, and the Cure of them. First by a right Use of the Non-Naturals chiefly by Diet. And Secondly by Medicine. […] Leeds: Printed by James Lister.Google Scholar
Huxham, John
1750 An Essay on Fevers, and their Various Kinds, as depending on Different Constitutions of the Blood: with Dissertations on Slow Nervous Fevers; on Putrid, Pestilential, Spotted Fevers; on the Small-Pox and on Pleurisies and Peripneumonies. […] London: Printed for S. Austen, in Newgate-street.Google Scholar
Millar, John
1770 Observations on the Prevailing Diseases in Great Britain: together with a Review of the History of those of Former Periods, and in Other Countries. […] London: Printed for T. Cadell, successor to Mr. Millar, and T. Noteman, in the Strand.Google Scholar
Sims, James
1773 Observations on Epidemic Disorders, with Remarks on Nervous and Malignant Fevers. […] London: Printed for J. Johnson, in St. Paul’s Church-Yard; and G. Robinson, in Pater-noster-row.Google Scholar
2nd 1776 Observations on Epidemical Disorders, with Remarks on Nervous and Malignant Fevers. […] London: Printed for J. Johnson, in St. Paul’s Church-Yard; and G. Robinson, in Pater-noster-row.Google Scholar
Smythson, Hugh
1785 The Compleat Family Physician; or, Universal Medical Repository. Containing the Causes, Symptoms, Preventions, and Cures, all the various Maladies to which Human Nature is liable. An Account of every celebrated SPA, British and Foreign, and Strictures on Quackery. To which are added, The Family Surgery; The Compleat British Herbal; Observations on Tea, Coffee, Tobacco, and Snuff; and a Great Variety of Most Extraordinary Cases in Physic and Surgery. The whole forming A Compleat Body of Domestic Medicine, calculated as well to assist Gentlemen of the Faculty, as for the Use of Private Families. […] London: Printed for Harrison and Co. N° 18, Paternoster Row.Google Scholar
Wallis, George
1793 The Art of Preventing Diseases, and Restoring Health, founded on Rational Principles, and adapted to Persons of Every Capacity. […] London: Printed for G.G.J. and J. Robinson, Paternoster-row.Google Scholar
2nd 1795 The Complete family Physician, or The Art of Preventing Diseases, and Restoring Health, founded on Rational Principles, and adapted to Persons of Every Capacity. […] Second Edition with considerable Alterations and Additions. London: Printed by G. Sidney, Black Horse Court, Fleet Street.Google Scholar
2nd 1796 The Art of Preventing Diseases, and Restoring Health, founded on Rational Principles, and adapted to Persons of Every Capacity. […] Second Edition. With considerable Alterations and Additions. London: Printed for G.G. and J. Robinson, Paternoster-row.Google Scholar

Secondary sources

de Beaugrande, Robert-Alain, and Wolfgang U. Dressler
1981 Introduction to Text Linguistics. London: Longman. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Furdell, Elizabeth L.
2002 Publishing and Medicine in Early Modern England. Rochester, New York: University of Rochester Press.Google Scholar
Genette, Gérard
1991 “Introduction to the Paratext.” New Literary History 22 (2): 261–272. The Johns Hopkins University Press. [URL]
1997 Paratexts. Thresholds of Interpretation. [Translated by Jane E. Lewin; Forword by Richard Macksey] Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [First edition in French, Seuils, Editions du Seuil 1987] DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goffman, Erving
1986 Frame Analysis. An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Boston: Northeastern University Press. [First edition published by Harper & Row, New York 1974]Google Scholar
Gross, Alan G., Joseph E. Harmon, and Michael S. Reidy
2009 Communicating Science. The Scientific Article from the 17th Century to the Present. Indiana, West Lafayette: Parlor Press [2002 by Oxford University Press]Google Scholar
Gunnarsson, Britt-Louise
2011 “Introduction: Languages of Science in the Eighteenth-Century.” In Languages of Science in the Eighteenth Century, ed. by Britt-Louise Gunnarsson, 3–21. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lane, Joan
2001 A Social History of Medicine. Health, Healing and Disease in England, 1750–1950. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Lonati, Elisabetta
2007 “Blancardus’ Lexicon Medicum in Harris’s Lexicon Technicum: A Lexicographic and Lexicological Study.” In Words and Dictionaries from the British Isles in Historical Perspective, ed. by John Considine, and Giovanni Iamartino, 91–108. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar
2013 “Health and Medicine in 18th-Century England: A Sociolinguistic Approach.” In The Popularization of Specialized Discourse and Knowledge across Communities and Cultures, ed. by Susan Kermas, and Thomas Christiansen, 101–128. Bari: Edipuglia.Google Scholar
2014 “Medical Entries in 18th-Century Encyclopaedias: The Lexicographic Construction of Knowledge.” In Perspectives in Medical English, ed. by Tatiana Canziani, Kim S. Grego, and Giovanni Iamartino, 89–107. Monza: Polimetrica International Scientific Publisher.Google Scholar
2016 “The Language of Medicine in the Philosophical Transactions: Observations on Style.” Token: A Journal of English Linguistics 5: 5–24. [URL] & [URL]
2017 Communicating Medicine. British Medical Discourse in Eighteenth-Century Reference Works. Milano: DiSegni, Ledizioni. [URL] DOI logo
McConchie, Roderick W.
2013 “Some Reflections on Early Modern Printed Title-Pages.” In Principles and Practices for the Digital Editing and Annotation of Diachronic Data, ed. by Anneli Meurman-Solin, and Jukka Tyrkkö. Helsinki: VARIENG. [URL]
Mirenayat, Sayyed A., and Elaheh Soofastaei
2015 “Gérard Genette and the Categorization of Textual Transcendence.” Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences 6 (5): 533–537.Google Scholar
Pahta, Päivi
2011 “Eighteenth-Century English Medical Texts and Discourses on Reproduction.” In Languages of Science in the Eighteenth Century, ed. by Britt-Louise Gunnarsson, 333–351. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ratia, Maura
2013 “Investigating Genre through Title-pages: Plague Treatises of the Stuart Period in Focus.” In Principles and Practices for the Digital Editing and Annotation of Diachronic Data, ed. by Anneli Meurman-Solin, and Jukka Tyrkkö. Helsinki: VARIENG. [URL]
Raven, James
2007 The Business of Books. Booksellers and the English Book Trade, 1450–1850. New Haven/London: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Charles E.
1983 “Medical Text and Social Context: Explaining William Buchan’s ‘Domestic Medicine.’” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 57 (1): 22–42.Google Scholar
Signy, Patrick
2010 “The Popularization of Medicine in the Eighteenth Century: Writing, Reading, and Rewriting Samuel Auguste Tissot’s Avis au peuple sur sa santé.” The Journal of Modern History 82 (4): 769–800. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Taavitsainen, Irma, and Päivi Pahta
2011 “An Interdisciplinary Approach to Medical Writing in Early Modern English.” In Medical Writing in Early Modern English [Studies in English Language], ed. by Irma Taavitsainen, and Päivi Pahta, 1–8. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2013 “The Corpus of Early English Medical Writing (1375–1800) – a Register-Specific Diachronic Corpus for Studying the History of Scientific Writing.” In Principles and Practices for the Digital Editing and Annotation of Diachronic Data, ed. by Anneli Meurman-Solin, and Jukka Tyrkkö. Helsinki: VARIENG. [URL]
Taavitsainen, Irma, Turo Hiltunen, Anu Lehto, Ville Marttila, Päivi Pahta, Maura Ratia, Carla Suhr, and Jukka Tyrkkö
2014 “ ‘Late Modern English Medical Texts 1700–1800’: A Corpus for Analyzing Eighteenth-Century Medical English.” ICAME Journal 38: 137–153. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Taavitsainen, Irma
2015 “Medical News in England 1665–1800 in Journals for Professional and Lay Audiences.” In Changing Genre Conventions in Historical English News Discourse, ed. by Birte Bös, and Lucia Kornexl, 135–160. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Waddington, Keir
2011 An Introduction to the Social History of Medicine. Europe since 1500. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave MacMillan.Google Scholar