Ch. 4: Wells: Learning to Write Medicine

Due to my research and work on a proposal, this might not be that executive or detailed of a summary.

     In chapter 4, Wells discusses some of the initial problems with 19^th century medical colleges in relation to what texts they were composing and the overall ability for the physician to adequately perform his or her duties. There were also some concerns expressed about basic composition skills; some leading physicians of the time feared this lack of skill in composition could possibly lead to an inadequate treatment of a patient's condition. It was also a concern and belief that certain standards and practices needed to be in place to ensure the integrity of the medical college and the physicians it graduated.

   There, then, was a large focus put on the overall composition of the medical students theses. This was one way to gauge the student's knowledge of the discipline of medicine as well as his/her composition skills. There were some developments as to what constitutes a good thesis and what said thesis should contain, though; developing an authoritative voice and transferring that voice into scholarly writing that was sound, coherent and valuable became as important as knowing diseases and proper treatment. This was just the beginning to what would later spawn more sophisticated and developed writing practices of medical students and physicians.

     Wells goes on to explain how both men and women in the discipline learned to use tropes such as satire in their writing and how different styles of writing were adopted by different genders. An evolution of sorts occurred within the medical discipline that produced many diverse styles of writing by both men and women; this evolution helped facilitate the growing medical college's developing persona and what is was concerned with in regards to its internal publications and external publications. Wells also describes how the development of the woman writer and the woman physician in 19^th century America helped create a new idea as to what the practice of medicine entailed. In some regards, the woman doctor allowed for the softening of the medical college's edges. Although medicine was still part of a highly patriarchal construct in which men were held in higher regard, the woman writer helped develop a different audience and negotiate identities for themselves and other women in society. This negotiation was also in development for the African American, female medical student. Being that it was 18th century, who and what a black woman should be was a burgeoning conversation, so the African American woman had a dual conflict in defining herself.