Book Review
Doctor Franklin's Medicine
N Engl J Med 2006; 354:2081-2082May 11, 2006
- Article
Doctor Franklin's Medicine
By Stanley Finger. 379 pp., illustrated. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006. $39.95. ISBN: 0-8122-3913-XBenjamin Franklin, the 10th of 12 children born to a candle and soap maker, left school at the age of 10 to work in the family business. At 17, he left his Boston home and moved to the bustling and prosperous city of Philadelphia, arriving with only a few coins in his pocket.
From these relatively humble origins, Franklin went on to become one of the most distinguished figures in all of American history. He traveled to London to negotiate for the colonies, helped to draft both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, spent considerable time in Paris obtaining military aid from France for the fledgling United States, and signed the peace treaty with Britain. He also made a small fortune as a printer, was postmaster of Philadelphia, and corresponded with leading intellectuals around the world. This amazing polymath was so widely accomplished that it has been said (by the comedy troupe Firesign Theatre) that “Benjamin Franklin is the only President of the United States never to have been President of the United States.” Indeed, that would seem to be the sole honor not to have been bestowed on him. After Franklin died, in 1790, it is said that half the residents of Philadelphia witnessed his funeral procession.
Throughout his life, Franklin — perhaps reflecting his modest roots — emphasized the value of hard work, self-improvement, and practical education aimed at creating useful knowledge. As befitted someone with his enormous intellect and diverse interests, Franklin was influential in shaping knowledge about a broad range of subjects, including medical topics. Indeed, a learned gentleman — and Franklin was certainly that — was expected to be as knowledgeable about matters medical as many so-called physicians.
Although the title of Finger's book refers to medicine, the book also examines Franklin's ideas related to the broader topics of health and health care, which is appropriate for a book about someone who lived in the 18th century, when boundaries between what was medical and what was not were considerably fuzzier than they are today. The book discusses Franklin's ideas on healthy living, exposing quack remedies, identifying new instruments, and founding new institutions; the sections often include a summary of the relevant historical background. Some of Franklin's accomplishments were the development of an improved stove, foresighted ideas about the origins of the common cold, membership on committees that criticized 18th-century ideas about mesmerism, the encouragement of smallpox inoculation and exercise, the founding of the first hospital and the first medical school in the United States, and wide-ranging work on the medical and health implications of the curious phenomenon known as electricity. The book also discusses Franklin's personal difficulties with gout and renal stones, as well as his failing vision, which led him to invent bifocals.
Clearly fascinated by Franklin, the author explicitly chose to write this account from a scientist's perspective, presumably that of a 21st-century scientist. In so doing, he has created thematic chapters that emphasize Franklin's contributions to present-day ideas. Although this approach has some value, it risks making connections that Franklin and his 18th-century contemporaries might not have seen as valid. It also risks taking ideas out of the context of the larger, revolutionary world in which Franklin lived, and it has a jarring tendency to jump back and forth between 18th- and 21st-century understandings of the world.
Joel D. Howell, M.D., Ph.D.
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109
jhowell@umich.edu
