Popular Medicine and Empirics in Greece, 1900-1950: An Oral History Approach.

Western literature has focused on medical plurality but also on the pervasive existence of quacks who managed to survive from at least the eighteenth to the twentieth century. Focal points of their practices have been their efforts at enrichment and their extensive advertising. In Greece, empirical, untrained healers in the first half of the twentieth century do not fit in with this picture. They did not ask for payment, although they did accept 'gifts'; they did not advertise their practice; and they had fixed places of residence. Licensed physicians did not undertake a concerted attack against them, as happened in the West against the quacks, and neither did the state. In this paper, it is argued that both the protection offered by their localities to resident popular healers and the healers' lack of demand for monetary payment were jointly responsible for the lack of prosecutions of popular healers. Moreover, the linking of popular medicine with ancient traditions, as put forward by influential folklore studies, also reduced the likelihood of an aggressive discourse against the popular healers. Although the Greek situation in the early twentieth century contrasts with the historiography on quacks, it is much more in line with that on wise women and cunning-folk. It is thus the identification of these groups of healers in Greece and elsewhere, mostly through the use of oral histories but also through folklore studies, that reveals a different story from that of the aggressive discourse of medical men against quacks.

A delayed inheritance: the Medical Board of Victoria's 75-year wait to find doctors guilty of "infamous conduct in a professional respect".

The Medical Board of Victoria (Board) was created in 1844 to register "legally qualified medical practitioners". It was not until 1933, however, that the Board attained the power to remove from its register a doctor who had engaged in "infamous conduct in a professional respect" (the power), even though the General Council of Medical Education and Registration of the United Kingdom on which the Board was modelled had been granted the power 75 years earlier. This article argues that the delay in the Board's inheritance was attributable to successive Victorian Parliaments' distrust of the Board and that this attitude was unwarranted, at least from early in the 20th century. The article maintains that the granting of the power to the Board was a crucial event in the history of the regulation of the Victorian medical profession. This is illustrated both by the difficulty encountered by the medical profession in dealing with doctors' unethical conduct before 1933, and the Board's concern to use its new authority responsibly and appropriately to protect the public and the profession in the three years after it attained the power.

Registration and reregistration application fees. Confirmation of final rule, remanded for further notice and comment, and response to comments.

DEA is publishing a final rule regarding the registration and reregistration fees charged to controlled substances registrants. DEA is required to charge reasonable fees relating to the registration and control of the manufacture, distribution, and dispensing of controlled substances. To address this mandate, on March 22, 1993 DEA published a final rule in the Federal Register, establishing registration fees for controlled substances registrants (58 FR 15272). Following publication of the final rule, the American Medical Association (AMA) and others filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia objecting to the new fees. The district court issued its final order granting the government's motion for summary judgment and disposing of all claims. The AMA appealed. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found DEA's rulemaking to be inadequate. The appeals court remanded, without vacating, the rule to DEA, requiring the agency to provide an opportunity for meaningful notice and comment on the fee-funded components of the Diversion Control Program. DEA responded to the remand requirement through a document published in the Federal Register on December 30, 1996 (61 FR 68624). This Final Rule supplements the December 30, 1996 Federal Register document and with that document, constitutes the final rule on the Drug Diversion Control Fee Account.

Medical honoraria in the 17th century.

Paolo Zacchias (1584-1659), the physician of the Pope, in his main work, "Quaestiones medico-legales" (Rome, 1621-1625) provides answers to hundreds of important practical and theoretical questions. On the following pages the author tries to summarize Zacchias's opinion concerning the problem of honorarium and fee, hoping that this short extract will prove to be useful for the modern physician as well.

A comparison of rural family practice in the 1930s and today.

Two hundred forty-four consecutive diagnoses and procedures appearing on the patient billing records between June 1934 and September 1935 of a general physician practicing in rural southwestern Minnesota were compared with 286 diagnoses and procedures taken from the billing records of patient visits made over a 2-week period to a modern family physician practicing in a comparable rural community in southwestern Ohio. The most common items on the billing records of the physician of the 1930s were follow-up incision and drainage of abscess, 26 (10.7%); diphtheria immunization, 24 (9.8%); follow-up drainage for mastoiditis, 17 (7.0%); and scrotal tap for epididymitis, 14 (5.7%). Many of these patient encounters were at the patient's home. The most common items on the records of the modern physician practicing in rural southwestern Ohio were upper respiratory tract infection, 13 (4.5%); hypertension, 12 (4.2%); hyperlipidemia, 11 (3.9%); and history-taking and physical examination (adult), 10 (3.5%). This study suggests that there are great differences between the diagnostic profiles of the first third of the 20th century and modern family physicians. Many of the common diagnoses seen by the physician of the 1930s required a procedure to be performed. Many of the problems treated by the contemporary family physician did not even exist for the early 20th century general physician. Some of the differences between the modern physician and his predecessor can be explained by the introduction of antibiotics in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

A ledger stamped 'G.P'.

The practice statistics from a doctor's account ledger, initialled ;G. P.' are analysed to see if they fit the career of Dr George Pilkington, between 1879 and 1884.