Disrupted dialogue

"This volume begins with the eighteenth century Scottish Enlightenment when physicians such as John Gregory, Thomas Percival, and the American, Benjamin Rush, were close friends of philosophers like David Hume, Adam Smith, and Thomas Reid. They continually exchanged views on matters of ethics with each other in print, at meetings of elite intellectual groups, and at the dinner table. Then something happened: physicians and humanists stopped talking with each other. In searching for the causes of the collapse, this book identifies shifts in the social class of physicians, developments in medical science, and changes in the patterns of medical education."--Jacket.