Key Points
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Examines the ethical basis of community health provision in the early sixteenth century through descriptions in Thomas More's Utopia.
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Compares this ethical basis with the reality of More's Ordinances of 1530.
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Provides a paragraph by paragraph comparison between Utopia and the Act of 1540.
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Identifies a 'Morean' origin for the separation, for public health reasons, of tooth-drawing from Surgery in the Act of 1540.
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Looks briefly at the philosophical environment created by the Italian Renaissance in English public life.
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Shows More's attitude to women in medicine.
Abstract
This essay places the early modern origins of the ethico-legal structure of medicine, in which eventually by exclusion or inclusion, dental activity shared, in the Humanist environment of the Italian Renaissance as it was imported into England in the first years of the sixteenth century. There were two linked stages to this, the first supported by the genius of Thomas Linacre (1460–1524), and the second by the administrative ability of Sir Thomas More (1478–1535). This paper concentrates on the evidence for the intellectual basis of More's medical legislation, and that which was made shortly after his death.
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References
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Acknowledgements
The authors are very grateful for the assistance of Michelle Gunning of the Library at the Royal College of Surgeons. Dr William Jenkins provided information on the Holbein family from Switzerland, Mrs Martin Hale translated from the German. Penguin Books very kindly gave permission for the Turner quotations, and the British Library took the photographs and gave permission for use of the illustrations. Christopher Liddle, late of the College of Law, supplied legal material.
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Bishop, M., Gelbier, S. Ethics and Utopia: public health theory and practice in the sixteenth century An essay comparing the Henrician Medical Act of 1540 and More's 1530 Ordinances, with Thomas More's novel 'Utopia' of 1516. Br Dent J 195, 251–255 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bdj.4810471
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bdj.4810471
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