The women of the family? Speculations around early modern British physicians.

In the extensively explored areas of professionalization, domestic ideology, and the relationships between women and medicine, the debate on the British case has given little consideration to issues of identity arising for the male medical practitioner as a result of family life. For the early modern period, these issues can be seen as among a broad-ranging set of problems posed by the female gender connotations of the medical role. Such problems were most pronounced for the élite physicians who sought membership of the London College of Physicians. Their attitudes and dilemmas are important because of their influence, over the long term, on the criteria for professionalization. Using biographical data, a contrast can be shown between the dynastic ideals of physicians, which stressed the male line, and the high incidence among such physicians of celibacy, childlessness, and small families. Families of origin of physicians, on the other hand, tended to be large. Assumptions about the role of women in medical care, especially in clerical and gentry families, entail a recognition of the possible influence of female relatives on the vocations of male physicians. Given the low status of women's work, physicians developed ambivalences which affected the construction of their identities, their families, and the passing on of their skills.