Y number of the Medico-Chirurgical Review) and its extensive circulation (far higher than any of its rivals).4 However, perhaps the most frequently noted characteristic is its style. With The Lancet, Wakley broke the mould of medical journalism, employing an acerbic and combative editorial voice which has earned him both the admiration and admonishment of posterity. Mary Bostetter, forA. Desmond, The Politics of Evolution: Morphology, Medicine and Reform in Radical London (Chicago, 1989). 3J. H. Warner, `The idea of science in English medicine: the “decline” of science and the rhetoric of reform, 1815?5′ in R. French and A. Wear (eds), British Medicine in an Age of Reform (London, 1991); I. Burney, `Making room at the public bar: coroners’ inquests, medical knowledge and the politics of the constitution in early nineteenth-century England’ in J. Vernon (ed.), Re-reading the Constitution: New Narratives in the History of England’s Long Nineteenth Century (Cambridge,1996); I. Burney, `Medicine in the Age of Reform’ in A. Burns and J. Innes (eds), Rethinking the Age of Reform: Britain, 1780 ?1850 (Cambridge, 2003). See also L. S. Jacyna, Philosophic Whigs: Medicine, Science and Citizenship in HMPL-012 supplement Edinburgh, 1789 ?848 (London, 1994). 4 In 1824, Wakley claimed that The Lancet had `at least ten thousand readers’. The Lancet, 1:23 (7 March 1824), 323. Wakley’s biographer put the circulation figure at upwards of four thousand ?see S. Sprigge, The Life and Times of Thomas Wakley (London, 1899), 102.Social HistoryVOL.39 :NO.example, describes his writing as `colourful, vigorous, and straightforward’, characterized by a `direct, say-it-like-it-is manner’.5 Meanwhile, Jean and Irvine Loudon, clearly less enamoured by Wakley’s invective, claim that `[h]is crude and often puerile attacks on medical men and medical corporations, at first amusing, soon become tedious’.6 Critical or otherwise, medical historians have tended to explain The Lancet’s apparent idiosyncrasies by attributing them to Wakley’s unique personality. One has even gone so far as to suggest that he was `sui generis’, a peculiar historical aberration.7 And yet, while Wakley’s personal biography is clearly important to understanding the roots of his ideology and editorial technique, such accounts tend to advance a somewhat decontextualized analysis which underplays the cultural politics of print and the historical importance of literary style. The continued prominence of The Lancet as a medical periodical may serve to encourage presentist readings. In recent years the journal has published a number of articles on its founding editor, but for the most part these have gratified little more than antiquarian curiosity or have sought to harness the past to contemporary medical debates.8 Even in more academic studies The Lancet is often represented as a forerunner of something modern rather than a product of specific historical circumstance. The Loudons, for example, have claimed that it `was to the medical establishment of the 1820s and 1830s what Private Eye is to the political and social establishment today’ while Debbie Harrison (��)-BGB-3111 biological activity opines that Wakley used controversy `as part of a thoroughly modern marketing strategy of the periodical press’ and that his work entails an early example of `what today we would call name and shame investigative journalism’.9 For a more self-consciously historicist account one must look to an article by Brittany Pladek in which she endeavours to understand The Lance.Y number of the Medico-Chirurgical Review) and its extensive circulation (far higher than any of its rivals).4 However, perhaps the most frequently noted characteristic is its style. With The Lancet, Wakley broke the mould of medical journalism, employing an acerbic and combative editorial voice which has earned him both the admiration and admonishment of posterity. Mary Bostetter, forA. Desmond, The Politics of Evolution: Morphology, Medicine and Reform in Radical London (Chicago, 1989). 3J. H. Warner, `The idea of science in English medicine: the “decline” of science and the rhetoric of reform, 1815?5′ in R. French and A. Wear (eds), British Medicine in an Age of Reform (London, 1991); I. Burney, `Making room at the public bar: coroners’ inquests, medical knowledge and the politics of the constitution in early nineteenth-century England’ in J. Vernon (ed.), Re-reading the Constitution: New Narratives in the History of England’s Long Nineteenth Century (Cambridge,1996); I. Burney, `Medicine in the Age of Reform’ in A. Burns and J. Innes (eds), Rethinking the Age of Reform: Britain, 1780 ?1850 (Cambridge, 2003). See also L. S. Jacyna, Philosophic Whigs: Medicine, Science and Citizenship in Edinburgh, 1789 ?848 (London, 1994). 4 In 1824, Wakley claimed that The Lancet had `at least ten thousand readers’. The Lancet, 1:23 (7 March 1824), 323. Wakley’s biographer put the circulation figure at upwards of four thousand ?see S. Sprigge, The Life and Times of Thomas Wakley (London, 1899), 102.Social HistoryVOL.39 :NO.example, describes his writing as `colourful, vigorous, and straightforward’, characterized by a `direct, say-it-like-it-is manner’.5 Meanwhile, Jean and Irvine Loudon, clearly less enamoured by Wakley’s invective, claim that `[h]is crude and often puerile attacks on medical men and medical corporations, at first amusing, soon become tedious’.6 Critical or otherwise, medical historians have tended to explain The Lancet’s apparent idiosyncrasies by attributing them to Wakley’s unique personality. One has even gone so far as to suggest that he was `sui generis’, a peculiar historical aberration.7 And yet, while Wakley’s personal biography is clearly important to understanding the roots of his ideology and editorial technique, such accounts tend to advance a somewhat decontextualized analysis which underplays the cultural politics of print and the historical importance of literary style. The continued prominence of The Lancet as a medical periodical may serve to encourage presentist readings. In recent years the journal has published a number of articles on its founding editor, but for the most part these have gratified little more than antiquarian curiosity or have sought to harness the past to contemporary medical debates.8 Even in more academic studies The Lancet is often represented as a forerunner of something modern rather than a product of specific historical circumstance. The Loudons, for example, have claimed that it `was to the medical establishment of the 1820s and 1830s what Private Eye is to the political and social establishment today’ while Debbie Harrison opines that Wakley used controversy `as part of a thoroughly modern marketing strategy of the periodical press’ and that his work entails an early example of `what today we would call name and shame investigative journalism’.9 For a more self-consciously historicist account one must look to an article by Brittany Pladek in which she endeavours to understand The Lance.
