2023/09/01 by Travis Chi Wing Lau · 1 voice
Business, Management and Accounting · Health Professions · Social Sciences · #Global Public Health Policies and Epidemiology #Public Health Policies and Education #Historical and modern epidemiology studies
paper · doi:10.1353/ecy.2023.a906906
openalex publication_date 2023/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
Abstract: This essay turns to William Buchan's Domestic Medicine (1769) to consider how this popular manual modeled a form of accessible health education for the wider public. Published well before public health became a professionalized field, Buchan's book of practical health advice invited its readers to take ownership of their own health but also to better understand the often inaccessible practice of medicine. This essay considers how Buchan's investment in "laying medicine more open to mankind" might offer ways to intervene in the long-standing problems of scientific distrust and medical resistance intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic.