The Medical Press

Abstract

The chapter examines the dissemination of medical knowledge beginning with the mid-seventeenth-century newsbooks followed by the very important Philosophical Transactions. For the eighteenth century the focus is on early specialised London periodicals followed by the Edinburgh specialised medical periodicals and in particular the Edinburgh Medical Journal (EMJ). Investigating genre developments, the chapter examines a) how the mode of writing varies from monologic language use to interactive negotiation with the readers and b) the range of epistolary texts from foreign and domestic correspondents. The last decades of the eighteenth century brought along innovative novel concepts and new types of journals which distributed knowledge of recent medical achievements and clinical advances among professional medical doctors. The chapter also includes a case study, based on corpus linguistics methodology, of how knowledge about reproduction and childbirth was communicated in the earliest medical press.