How did people find or decide a doctor's reputation during the Roman days ?
2006-09-30 06:17:49 · 4 answers · asked by mmmporg 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Medicine
From Roman times backwards and forwards until very recent times, all reputation was word of mouth. That's what there was. Until newspapers became fairly common in the 18th century, there was no such thing as advertising, really. There was signage, and that was all. The Inn of the Prancing Pony, and all that.
So the doctor's reputation was word of mouth, and since not that many doctors existed anyway, people basically knew who you meant when you said "run and fetch the doctor." Under those conditions, it was invariably the closest one. A person might groan or consider himself lucky when he saw which doctor had responded, but he probably never knew more than two or three at most, anyway.
2006-09-30 06:29:47 · answer #1 · answered by auntb93again 7 · 2⤊ 1⤋
A doctor's reputation increased as fewer of his patients died.
Pliny reminds us that doctors' experiments on patients were often fatal but were protected: "This is the only profession where anyone is immediately believed who professes to be a doctor, when surely no untruth could be more dangerous...They learn from our dangers and their experiments lead to deaths; and only doctors can commit homicide with impunity. Indeed the blame goes to the victim, who is chastised for intemperance and self indulgence." -Natural history
2006-10-06 07:43:10 · answer #2 · answered by pax veritas 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
If the patient lived the doctor got a good reputation. If the patient died they burned the doctor as a witch. Anyone could say they were a doctor in those days.
2006-10-04 08:34:49 · answer #3 · answered by SunFun 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
word of mouth. If your neighbor said they saw Dr so and so and liked him or your next door neighbor said they didn't like Dr such and such..
It was all they had.
They didn't have computers or phones or phone books to advertise in.
Drs may have hung out their shingle on a rock or piece of wood..
if you are in medicine I have a never ending respect for all you have learned and all the studying you have done to get where you are.
2006-09-30 06:27:48 · answer #4 · answered by helpme1 5 · 0⤊ 1⤋
I guesss by the help of how effective the cure proved to be on one person and then on anotherand then the word of mouth spread to other places.
2006-09-30 06:33:21 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋