Dingwall H M
Department of History, University of Stirling, UK.
Soc Hist Med. 2000 Apr;13(1):23-44. doi: 10.1093/shm/13.1.23.
The eighteenth century was a period of development and change in Scottish society, its structures, and institutions. In Edinburgh the Royal College of Physicians, the Incorporation of Surgeons (Royal College from 1778), and the University attempted to improve medical and surgical training, and in the second half of the century the Scottish Enlightenment found its intellectual home in the capital. At the same time, the newspaper press was consolidating and Scots had access to a number of newspapers which appeared regularly, such as the Caledomian Mercury and Edinburgh Advistiser. The press became a major vehicle for the dissemination of information and opinion of all sorts, and examination of surviving newspapers had yielded a substantial amount of evidence on the use of the press by medical practitioners and their organizations. The medical contents of the newspapers demonstrate the progress of the institutions, the activities of individual practitioners, the changing nature of lay practice, and some of the tensions which existed in Edinburgh medicine and society in the hotbed of the Enlightenment period.
18世纪是苏格兰社会、其结构和制度发展与变革的时期。在爱丁堡，皇家内科医师学院、外科医师公会（1778年起为皇家学院）以及大学都试图改进医学和外科培训，而在该世纪后半叶，苏格兰启蒙运动在这座首府找到了思想家园。与此同时，报业正在巩固，苏格兰人能够读到一些定期出版的报纸，比如《喀里多尼亚信使报》和《爱丁堡广告报》。报纸成为传播各类信息和观点的主要媒介，对现存报纸的研究已经产生了大量关于医学从业者及其组织利用报纸的证据。报纸的医学内容展示了各机构的发展、个体从业者的活动、外行行医性质的变化，以及在启蒙运动温床中的爱丁堡医学与社会中存在的一些紧张关系。
