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Of course a doctor should try to cure the patient by natural means. But such remedies were to be employed cautiously, with the recognition that they could only work if God permitted. It was lawful to take physic, but unlawful to trust in it too much.… Health came from God, not from Doctors.”
Previously confined to those who could consult a physician, the authority of medicine now reached the far larger number who could consult a physician’s book. Increasing the autonomous competence of the public helped prepare the ground for its later acceptance of professional authority.
At Oxbridge physicians studied the classics; at the London hospitals they acquired more practical experience. This system, poorly adapted for advancing science, was well adapted for advancing careers, for professional success depended on acquiring the proper social graces and connections.15
