CONTINUITY AND CHANGE IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY MEDICAL WRITING IN ENGLISH

Eighteenth-century scientific and medical developments have direct relevance to our modern world as they paved the way towards more modern practices. This article presents an overview of English medical writing during the century when, for example, new technical equipment like the microscope opened up new horizons, laboratory medicine took its first steps, and dissemination of medical knowledge developed and diversified. My assessment is qualitative but based on firm quantitative evidence of linguistic data by an innovative Digital Humanities method that revealed the changing trends and put them in ranking order. Most importantly, medicine achieved a new level of professionalization in the eighteenth century. More attention started to be paid to public health, new institutions were founded, and new topics emerged with the expansion of the British Empire.