Reading dermatology in the Victorian newspaper. The performance of medical vocabulary in The Times correspondence column

Abstract

This contribution concerns the role of the Victorian newspaper correspondence column in advancing knowledge of dermatology in relation to corporal punishment. It explores The Times' coverage of an inquest into the death by flogging of a British soldier. I argue that on the one hand, The Times participated in the debate about flogging in the army by bringing forward skin anatomy as an argument against corporal punishment. On the other hand, the paper might have used the publication of letters with medical content as a marketing strategy to maintain its authority and credibility against accusations of sensationalism. Abstract Health communication; Popularization of science and technology; Science and media Keywords ContextIn the second half of the nineteenth century, an inquest into the death of a soldier posed a challenge to perceiving the skin as a barrier of the human body during corporal punishment. A soldier called John Frederick White died from wounds caused by the infliction of 150 lashes. At that time, beating someone's back with sticks, whips or other tools was a judicial measure to maintain order in the army and the navy as well as in schools, prisons and private homes [Abbott, 2010]. In the army, an individual could be inflicted with anything from fifty up to thousands of lashes, which were given in instalments over the period of a year. A time interval was allowed between the whipping sessions to give the skin the opportunity to heal [Scott, 1950, p. 86]. Considering the skin's healing only as a symptom of full recovery was a misconception generated from an understanding of the skin as a superficial and protective layer that was independent of the underlying tissues. Sanitary reformer G. C. Rothery wrote: 'nature has provided a cushion covered with a sensitive skin, which if acted upon rightly, cannot result in injury ' [1897, p. 44]. However, these ideas coexisted with a new perception of skin that had appeared in nineteenth-century medicine and the popular imagination. It was becoming clearer then, that the skin was an anatomical organ equipped with its own pathological and physiological characteristics [te Hennepe, 2014, p. 546].The Times newspaper correspondence column on the inquest into the death of Private White, upon which this contribution focuses, furnishes an illustrative case study of how a newspaper could marshal information about the skin's anatomy.