Cover not available

In:Corpus Pragmatic Studies on the History of Medical Discourse
Edited by Turo Hiltunen and Irma Taavitsainen
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 330] 2022
► pp. 273–296

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload Book EPUB
authorization required

Chapter 12
How old is old?

The discourse of “good” ageing in nineteenth-century self-help medical texts

 | University of Milan
Published online: 1 July 2022
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.330.12gre
Abstract
Life expectancy in developed countries has increased significantly over the past two centuries. This study contributes to the existing literature on how “old age” was defined and described at the onset of this development, namely in nineteenth-century British self-help texts, directed at advising people on medical practices to age well, or cure specific ailments. Eighteen texts were retrieved from the online library of the Wellcome Collection (https://​wellcomecollection​.org/), employing the search term “old age”. A selection of these were analysed in depth, using specialised discourse analysis and critical genre analysis and also relying on socio-historical insights. These texts represent a diverse range of genres and contents employing various linguistic strategies and, thus, contributing to increasing the hybridity of the self-help manual genre in a time of great scientific and social change.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Data and sources
  • 3.Methods
  • 4.Analysis
    • 4.1Comparing the four sample texts
      • 4.1.1Pages, prices, publishers
      • 4.1.2Public and purpose
      • 4.1.3Topics and genre
    • 4.2Defining old age
    • 4.3The ailments of old age and their remedies
  • 5.Discussion of findings
  • 6.Conclusions, limits and developments
  • Notes
  • References
References (50)
References
Primary sources
Alcott, William Andrus. 1830. Health without Physic; Or Cordials for Youth, Manhood, and Old Age. Including Maxims, Moral and Facetious; For the Prevention of Disease, and the Attainment of a Long and Vigorous Life. London: Effingham Wilson.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Anonymous. 1832. Twenty Minutes’ Advice on Diet, Regimen, and Other Matters Connected with Health. With an Essay on Indigestion, and Rules, by the Observance of which, Persons may Live to a Good Old Age, without Consulting any Medical Man. A Non-Medical Treatise. London: W. Kidd.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ballin, Ada S. 1893?. Health & Beauty in Dress from Infancy to Old Age. London: Flack.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bernard, Thomas. 1813. Comforts of Old Age. Privately printed for distribution.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Black, James. 1840. A Manual on the Bowels and the Treatment of their Principal Disorders from Infancy to Old Age. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Browning, John Dudley. 1884. Our eyes: and How to Preserve Them from Infancy to Old Age with Special Information about Spectacles. London: Chatto & Windus.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Canton, Alfred. 1851. The Teeth and Their Preservation: In Infancy and Manhood to Old Age. London: Hippolyte Bailliere.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Carlisle, Anthony. 1817. An Essay on the Disorders of Old Age, and on the Means for Prolonging Human Life. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Forster, Thomas. 1829. Medicina Simplex, or, Practical Rules for the Preservation of Health: Printed at the Request of some Friends, for Popular Use. Chelmsford: Meggy and Chalk. Edition consulted: Forster, Thomas 1829/1832. Medicina Simplex, or, Practical Rules for the Preservation of Health: Printed at the Request of some Friends, for Popular Use. Chelmsford: Haddon and Fenton.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Imrie, William. 1835. The Parents’ Dental Guide; A Treatise on the Diseases of the Teeth and Gums from Infancy to Old Age; With Observations on Amalgams, Cements, etc. and Remarks on the Construction of Artificial Teeth. London: John Churchill.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jones, William. 1858. Health for the Million: Including Hints on the Physical Training of Youth, and the Treatment of Invalids and Old Age, with Observations on Unhealthy Employments / by the author of How to make home happy, The accidents of life, etc., etc. London: W. Kent.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Medicus [pseudonym]. 1830. The Oracle of Health and Long Life, or, Plain Rules for the Attainment and Preservation of Sound Health and Vigorous Old Age: With Rational Instructions for Diet, Regimen, &c. and the Treatment of Dyspepsy or Indigestion, Deduced from Personal Experience, and the Best Authors on Dietetics. London: Sherwood, Gilbert, & Piper.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Murphy, Joseph. 1811. A Natural History of the Human Teeth, with a Treatise on Their Diseases from Infancy to Old Age, Adapted for General Information: To Which Are Added Observations on the Physiognomy of the Teeth and the Projecting Chin. London: J. Callow.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Paris, John Ayrton. 1826. A Treatise on Diet: with a View to Establish, on Practical Grounds, a System of Rules for the Prevention and Cure of the Diseases Incident to a Disordered State of the Digestive Functions. London: Underwood.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rodd, Thomas (ed). 1837. Catalogue of Books for MDCCCXXXVII. Containing Theology and Ecclesiastical History. Metaphysics, Moral Philosophy and Education, 377. London: Compton and Ritchie.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sinclair, John. 1807. The Code of Health and Longevity. Or, a Concise View, of the Principles Calculated for the Preservation of Health, and the Attainment of Long Life […]. Edinburgh: A. Constable & co.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tweed, John. 1820. Popular Observations on Regimen and Diet: In Which the Nature and Qualities of Our Common Food Are Pointed Out and Explained: Together with Practical Rules and Regulations in regard to Health, Adapted to Various Situations and Circumstances from Infancy to Old Age. Chelmsford: Meggy and Chalk.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van Oven, Bernard. 1853. On the Decline of Life in Health and Disease, Being an Attempt to Investigate the Causes of Longevity: And the Best Means of Attaining a Healthful Old Age. London: John Churchill.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
West, Francis. 1827. A Familiar Treatise on the Human Eye: Containing Practical Rules That Will Enable All to Judge What Spectacles Are Best Calculated to Preserve Their Eyes to Extreme Old Age. Illustrated with Three Correct Diagrams of the Human Eye. London: W. Ackrill.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Whitmarsh, William Michael. 1870. The Finger-post of Life, or, How to Live: Indicating the Most Direct Way to Attain a Hearty Old Age. London: Kimpton.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Secondary sources
Bhatia, Vijay K. 2017. Critical Genre Analysis: Investigating Interdiscursive Performance in Professional Practice. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bynum, William F. 1990. Science and the Practice of Medicine in the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cole, R. J. 1952. “Sir Anthony Carlisle, F.R.S. (1768–1840).” Annals of Science 8 (3): 255–270. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman. 1992. Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. [1963] 2003. The Birth of the Clinic. An Archaeology of Medical Perception. Milton Park, Abingdon: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1980. “The Confession of the Flesh.” In Power/Knowledge Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972–1977, ed. by Colin Gordon, 194–228. New York: Pantheon books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Görlach, Manfred. 1999. English in Nineteenth-Century England: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gotti, Maurizio, Stefania Maci, and Michele Sala (eds). 2015. Insights into Medical Communication. Bern: Peter Lang. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johnson, Samuel. 1755. Dictionary of the English Language. London: W. Strahan.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jones, Colin, and Roy Porter (eds). [1994] 2001. Reassessing Foucault. Power, Medicine and the Body. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kramer, Cheryce, Trea Martyn, and Michael Newton (eds). 2003. Science as Polite Culture. Volume 1 of Literature and Science, 1660–1834. Part I, ed. by Judith Hawley. London: Pickering and Chatto.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kytö, Merja, Mats Rydén, and Erik Smitterberg. 2006. Nineteenth-Century English: Stability and Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lane, Joan. 2001. A Social History of Medicine. Health, Healing and Disease in England, 1750–1950. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2002. “‘The Doctor Scolds Me’: The Diaries and Correspondence of Patients in Eighteenth Century England.” In Patients and Practitioners: Lay Perceptions of Medicine in Pre-industrial Society, ed. by Roy Porter, 205–248. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lawrence, Christopher. 1994. Medicine in the Making of Modern Britain, 1700–1920. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Maci, Stefania, Michele Sala, and Maurizio Gotti. 2015. “Introduction.” In Insights into Medical Communication, ed. by Maurizio Gotti, Stefania Maci, and Michele Sala, 9–24. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
ODNB = Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 2004. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [URL]
Ottaway, Susannah R. 2004. The Decline of Life. Old Age in Eighteenth-Century England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Porter, Roy. [1985] 2002. “Laymen, Doctors and Medical Knowledge in the Eighteenth Century: The Evidence of The Gentleman’s Magazine.” In Patients and Practitioners: Lay Perceptions of Medicine in Pre-Industrial Society, ed. by Roy Porter, 283–314. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. [1987] 1995. Disease, Medicine and Society in England, 1550–1860. 2nd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1989. Health for Sale: Quackery in England, 1660–1850. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rose, Nikolas. [1994] 2001. “Medicine, History and the Present.” In Reassessing Foucault. Power, Medicine and the Body, ed. by Colin Jones, and Roy Porter, 48–72. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ruston, Sharon. 2005. “Vegetarianism and Vitality in the Work of Thomas Forster, William Lawrence and P. B. Shelley.” Keats-Shelley Journal 54: 113–132.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Smith, Ginnie. 2002. “Prescribing the Rules of Health: Self-Help and Advice in the Late Eighteenth Century.” In Patients and Practitioners: Lay Perceptions of Medicine in Pre-Industrial Society, ed. by Roy Porter, 249–282. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Taavitsainen, Irma, Turo Hiltunen, Anu Lehto, Ville Marttila, Päivi Pahta, Maura Ratia, Carla Suhr, and Jukka Tyrkkö. 2014. “Late Modern English Medical Texts 1700–1800: A Corpus for Analyzing Eighteenth-Century Medical English.” ICAME Journal 38: 137–153. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Troyansky, David G. 2005. “The Eighteenth Century.” In A History of Old Age, ed. by Pat Thane, 175–210. London: Thames & Hudson.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Waddington, Keir. 2011. An Introduction to the Social History of Medicine. Europe since 1500. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Worboys, Michael. 2011. “Practice and the Science of Medicine in the Nineteenth Century.” Isis. A Journal of the History of Science Society 102: 109–115. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yallop, Helen. 2013. Age and Identity in Eighteenth-Century England. London; Brookfield, VT: Pickering & Chatto.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue