| This dissertation critically examines the social and medical perceptions of nineteenth-century British aural surgery, a subset of medical practice providing treatments for aural diseases. Tracing the efforts of a particular group of London-based aural practitioners ("aurists") and their visions of a specialist identity, this dissertation explores how medical legitimacy was founded within a field constantly battling accusations of charlatanry. As aurists fiercely competed with each other for positions, status, and patients, accusations of quackery weakened their attempts to forge authority as skilled experts. Questions of credibility grazed the boundaries between authority and legitimacy as aurists not only defended their speciality from the broader medical occupation, but also from a social prejudice that deemed deafness medically incurable. Aurists thus used the rhetoric of "medical science" to invoke particular representations on how they wanted to define their surgical authority and be perceived by the broader medical community. From an examination of various strategies aurists used to construct their surgical authority, this dissertation highlights the resonances between quackery, entrepreneurialism, and legitimatization; "quack" was a highly ambiguous term generally used to disqualify an adversary or competitor, or to dismiss a particular medical procedure or technology. This dissertation is divided into five chapters, with each chapter showcasing the varied ways in which aurists constructed their identity and shaped their claims to legitimacy: from publicly disputing rules against medical intervention at deaf asylums, creating specialty hospitals, increasing publications of aural treatises, and developing newer diagnostic, therapeutic, and assistive instruments. |
