'A Wicked Operation'? Tonsillectomy in Twentieth-Century Britain
'A Wicked Operation'? Tonsillectomy in Twentieth-Century Britain
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DOI：
10.1017/mdh.2018.5
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发表时间：
2018-04-01
期刊：
影响因子：
1.4
通讯作者：
Dwyer-Hemmings, Louis
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Dwyer-Hemmings, Louis
20世纪的外科史都集中在外科手术的“第一次”--革命性手术的戏剧性故事。扁桃体切除术的历史并不那么迷人，但更广泛，代表了数百名儿童，父母和外科医生每天对医学的经验和理解。在世纪初，扁桃体切除术是常规手术-在英国每年至少有8万名学童接受手术。然而，到了20世纪80年代，公众和专业人士谴责该行动是一种“危险的时尚”。扁桃体切除术在医学、政治和社会地位上的这种深刻转变取决于几个因素：医疗机构和国家卫生保健组织的变化;医疗技术及其评判标准的变化;英国的政治、文化和经济背景;以及病人的社会角色。扁桃体切除术不仅仅是一个被动的外部影响的主题，而是成为医学，政治和社会话语中的一个强有力的概念。因此，它影响了这些话语，并随后影响了二十世纪英国医学的发展。“医学”和“非医学”领域之间的这些复杂的相互作用质疑了区分医学内部和外部的可能性。
Histories of twentieth-century surgery have focused on surgical 'firsts' - dramatic tales of revolutionary procedures. The history of tonsillectomy is less glamorous, but more widespread, representing the experience and understanding of medicine for hundreds of children, parents and surgeons daily. At the start of the twentieth century, tonsillectomy was routine - performed on at least 80 000 schoolchildren each year in Britain. However, by the 1980s, public and professional discourse condemned the operation as a 'dangerous fad'. This profound shift in the medical, political and social position of tonsillectomy rested upon several factors: changes in the organisation of medical institutions and national health care; changes in medical technologies and the criteria by which they are judged; the political, cultural and economic context of Britain; and the social role of the patient. Tonsillectomy was not a mere passive subject of external influences, but became a potent concept in medical, political, and social discourse. Therefore, it reciprocally influenced these discourses and subsequently the development of twentieth-century British medicine. These complex interactions between 'medical' and 'non-medical' spheres question the possibility of demarcating what is internal from what is external to medicine.