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Talk:James Braid (surgeon): Difference between revisions

Revision as of 21:03, 24 December 2009

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There are very very few citations in this article. I've marked where I would like to see some. LookingGlass (talk) 13:39, 7 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm Donald Robertson, the author of The Discovery of Hypnosis, a new edition of Braid's writings, and the only place where most of his works are published. I previously added some references to Braid's writings, published in the complete edition which someone has now anonymously removed. They've added a comment to their revisions which states: "Setting up better references that are not conected with the promotion of a commercial organization, plus other corrections and amendments." I assume what they mean is that the complete edition of Braid's writings is published by the National Council for Hypnotherapy. To set the record straight, unlike most publishing houses, this is actually a *non-profit* organisation. I therefore think it's a bit unreasonable to systematically purge any references to a book just because it's published by them.

The person who made these edits also introduced some errors into the article. For example, the article I published in IJCEH was not translated by Hilary Norris-Evans, she simply advised on minor amendments to my own translation. I'm not sure about the claim that this article was a loose translation of a German article, as far as I'm aware, it was translated into French from the English original; it's prefaced by an introduction in French by Braid himself addressed to the French Academy of Sciences and so the French translation seems to predate Preyer's German version, contrary to the comments added to the article. --HypnoSynthesis (talk) 07:46, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The changes that were made were to direct readers to the sources (Braid's Neurypnology and Bramwell's Hypnotism) that were freely available on the web; and, also, sources that can have their texts searched.129.94.78.159 (talk) 04:58, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, my edition, The Discovery of Hypnosis: The Complete Writings of James Braid (2009), contains primary sources which are not available elsewhere and my historical articles in the same volume, references for which were deleted, were there to provide support for some of the facts in this Wikipedia article. The whole book was made available free of charge online, via Google books, at publication, and can be searched via the link below. --HypnoSynthesis (talk) 21:21, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

http://books.google.com/books?id=Vs35STwQYQoC&dq=0956057004+hypnosis&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Your statement that "the whole book was made available free of charge online" is not correct; in fact it is immediately obvious, following the link that you have provided that your book is not available as what Google calls "FULL VIEW", it is only available as what Google calls "LIMITED PREVIEW — and, as a consequence, many parts of the book can not be seen (and, moreover, can not be downloaded).

Each and every one of your own-book-promoting references were changed so that they directed readers to a particular page in either Braid's Neurypnology or Bramwell's Hypnotism, two works that were not only "fully readable", but, also, "fully downloadable". Perhaps, you could consider make the entire book a "FULL VIEW" and "fully downloadable" on Google; otherwise, the references to Braid and Bramwell must stand.

Also, not commercial? [1] "This book has been published to help raise the profile of NCH by spreading its name as publisher around the net"129.94.78.159 (talk) 06:56, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You seem to be adopting a bit of a hostile attitude for some reason, and you're also mistaken. The whole book can be searched and read on Google, limited preview just means that there's a limit on how many pages you can view at a time, to prevent copying. As mentioned above, NCH is a NON-profit organisation whereas, I think you'll find that most publishers are profit-making commercial enterprises. I referenced content against my own complete edition of Braid's writings because it's the only version that's currently in print and because it contains material by Braid which is not in the edition of Neurypnology you're talking about. --HypnoSynthesis (talk) 21:02, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hostile attitude? Over the last few days I have added a number of historically important links that allow Wiki-readers to VIEW and DOWNLOAD an extended set of universally available references made up of both journal articles and published works that are available FREE of CHARGE, with UNLIMITED ACCESS, that are pertinent to understanding Braid and his work.Lindsay658 (talk) 01:53, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The result of the move request was RenametoJames Braid (surgeon) BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:03, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The request to rename this article to James Braid (surgeon) has been carried out. Be sure to close this discussion using {{subst:RM top|'''page moved'''.}} and {{subst:RM bottom}} and remove the {{Movereq|…}} tag.

James Braid (physician) → James Braid (surgeon)

(1) Braid was never “a physician”;

(2) As a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh continuously from 1815 until his death, he was always a surgeon;

(3) His entry in the first UK Medical Register (p.35) lists his qualification for registration (as at 1 January 1859) as “Lic. R. Coll. Surg. Edin. 1815” and no other medical qualification;

(4) He always referred to himself as either Mr. James Braid, surgeon, of (say) Manchester or James Braid, Esq., surgeon, of (say) Manchester;

(5) Unlike his son, James Braid, M.D. — who represented himself as a “general practitioner" on each of his census returns — on each and every document (including his census returns) upon which James Braid stated his occupation he stated “surgeon” (N.B. Never “physician and surgeon” and never “general practitioner”);

(6) He was never a “physician” in either the sense that his practise centred on the delivery of physic, or medicinal compounds, or in the sense of being a specialist in “internal medicine” — he was always a surgeon;

(7) Given the re-definition of the term “physician” in Canada and The USA (see Physician#North_America) in such a general way that it refers to anyone holding a medical degree, the inappropriate bestowal upon Braid of such a categorization, places Braid, prochronistically into a category that did not exist in Braid's lifetime; and

(8) his entire enterprise in relation to his experimentation and investigations into hypnotism can only be understood in terms of the structured thinking of a surgeon — although, of course, in 1815, the surgeons at Edinburgh, the best surgeons in the world, in that age where there were no X-Rays, no stethoscopes, no anaesthetics, no penicillin, etc. were slowly and relentlessly working to change their role from that of the surgeon-apothecary to that of the highly specialized surgeon of today.

In summary, any continuation of this outright, deliberate, non-veridical, and misleading misrepresentation of Braid’s true status will only contribute to the massive contemporary (in 2009) misunderstanding of this very important man and his valuable work.••• Lindsay658 (talk) 22:50, 10 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This seems... silly. In most/many modern usage, surgeons are a subset of physicians, which is an umbrella term for all those who practice medicine. The term in no way implies the person it's being used to describe is either a general practitioner or a specialist in internal medicine. And it is the modern terms that are more significant here, since the audience is written for a modern audience. At best, this issue focuses on the current English usage in N. America (where the newer usage of "physician" is universal) vs. outside it (where the older usage is dominant, but not universal), which seems like poor motivation for a rename. The article also makes clear that, whatever his background, the practices for which he became most notable were medicine decidedly outside surgery. AnthonySorace (talk) 05:29, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In the plurality of the English speaking -- i.e., British Heritage -- world it has come to pass, over time, that a surgeon is a specialist of a level that outranks a general practitioner by several magnitudes, and is never classified as a sub-set of "physician"..

It is a matter of considerable historical importance that the eminent Scottish surgeon Braid is not prochronistically placed within an incorrect category, simply to serve the whims of another group of English speakers -- i.e., citizens of USA -- who, for an equally important set of idiosyncratic and historical reasons, have an entirely different set of categories to describe their own medical practitioners and system of medicine.

It is of paramount importance to recognize and understand that Braid was a surgeon and, moreover, never sought recognition as a physician.

Although it seems to you, as a speaker of US English, and somebody accustomed to the US medical way of doing things, this seems "silly", it is not silly at all from the other perspective.

Perhaps, you might be more comfortable with accepting the simple proposition that you ought to take the intellectual position that since this is, essentially, a British article, about a British person, operating within the British medical structure of the time (a Scot who practised in Manchester) that British standards of expression (and, especialy, British standards of expression of the 1840s) apply to this article and that, in a similar way the your US "sulfur" must appear as British "sulphur", your US "aluminum" must appear as "aluminium" etc. and that, here, for similar reasons, Braid must appear as a surgeon.Lindsay658 (talk) 08:14, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'd love to see a support for the "plurality" claim counting people rather than countries. Your claim about surgeons "outranking" general practitioners is also a non-sequitur, as (a) there is no "ranking" system, and (b) even in British usage, physicians are not all general practitioners (it's entirely possible for internists to have more training than surgeons, even in Braid's time). Why is it you feel that the title has such historical significance? The text of the article is clear about his background. What's the big deal that warrants the disruption of a move? —Preceding unsigned comment added by AnthonySorace (talk • contribs) 03:25, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The importance of the differences between the English physicians and Scottish surgeons in the early nineteenth century was considerable, and any retrospective conflation of the two warring factions, prior to the Medical Act of 1848 is a serious mesrepresentation of fact.

John Elliotson, F.R.S., F.R.C.P., (1791–1868), physically about as tall as Elton John, was an eminent physician, and his dalliance with mesmerism – he never used mesmerism in any legitimate medical context, only using it to display the supposed clairvoyance of the Okey sisters (who later admitted to having simulated everything), and to lead one of the Okey sisters regularly down into the wards of the London University Hospital in the dead of night, to provide Elliotson with both diagnoses and prognoses of inmates — made him the enemy of the eminent surgeon Robert Liston, F.R.C.S. (Edin) (1794–1847), physically about 2 meters tall, who was, in part, responsible for the removal of Elliotson and his theatrical (and non-medical) displays from the rooms of the university’s hospital.

Also, Thomas Wakley (1795–1862), was a surgeon. He was so strongly opposed to Elliotson that, as editor of The Lancet, he eventually banned any references to mesmerism or animal magnetism (and, thus, Braid’s neuro-hypnotism) from the pages of The Lancet.

The two disparate parties, surgeons and physicians, were only brought together, as an act of political convenience, under the single generic term of medical practitioner, by the Medical Act of 1858, with the first registrations coming into effect in January 1859.

The fact that there were these two opposing camps of surgeons and physicians had an enormous effect on things medical and, especially, on the work of Braid, and it makes the fact that he was a surgeon, persistently interested in hypnotism, something quite remarkable.

Because of the dispute, essentially generated by widespread opposition to the physician Elliotson, and his colleague physician and phrenologist William Collins Engledue, M.D. (1813–1859), Braid was unable to have any of his researches published in The Lancet.

On another track, it is also highly significant that the surgeons collectively, with Liston in the vanguard -- who were so threatened by the emerging knowledge that mesmerism could render surgical subjects insensible to pain – so quickly adopted the dangerous, life-threatening use of inhaled sulphurous ether as an anaesthetic agent, almost without any preliminary testing, simply due to the perceived threat from mesmerism.

Therefore, I argue, regardless of what the case might be for individuals living and working in the medical profession, in the United States, in the first decade of the twenty-first century might be, whether one was a physician or a surgeon (and, indeed, whether one had been trained at Edinburgh or elsewhere) was a matter of considerable social and professional significance in the first half of the nineteenth century in England.

Once again, I am urging that the move from the inappropriate and prochronisitic categorization takes place as planned.Lindsay658 (talk) 21:25, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.