Not Quacks but Close: Reappraising the Role of Physicians on the Eighteenth-Century Medical Market

Abstract

This chapter reassesses the relationship between physicians and the eighteenth-century Swedish state. It argues that physicians’ connection to the state was rather tenuous throughout the period, and that they were neither considered nor treated as an important part of the cameralist machine of governance. This is a position which runs contrary to earlier historiography, which has tended to portray eighteenth-century physicians as forerunners to nineteenth- and twentieth-century branches of the state that are concerned with social medicine, hygiene, and general improvement of the health of the population. By giving examples of how physicians operated in different roles on the Swedish medical market and in relation to the state, the chapter points to the sprawling complexity of early modern health practices.