George Man Burrows and the anguished birth of general practice

Rise of the surgeon-apothecary

Before 1800, there was not one medical profession but three. The physicians, members of a learned profession, dealt with internal disorders. Surgeons were craftsmen whose sphere was still largely external. Apothecaries were tradesmen who dispensed physician’s prescriptions until they won the right to visit, advise, and prescribe.3 This well known tripartite division conceals the extent to which their respective practices overlapped with each other—and those of many untrained “irregulars.”

The rise of the surgeon-apothecary in the 18th century was in large measure driven by economic expediency. Most surgeons practised physic and pharmacy to survive, whereas apothecaries frequently undertook simple surgical procedures. Across the country in small towns and villages, most medical men—however they styled themselves—were undertaking much the same kind of general practice, involving all branches of medicine.

Burrows was born at Chalk, near Gravesend, in 1771. Educated at the King’s School, Canterbury, he was then apprenticed …