Should "Doctor" or "Dr" be used as prefix in pre-1700 profiles?

Question

Since WT name policy is to use "the names that people themselves would have known and that would have been recognized in their own time and place" and since the term "Doctor" was not commonly used to refer to medical practitioners until at least the mid-1700s, should the term "Doctor" or "Dr" be used as a prefix in pre-1700 profiles (absent a primary record showing that it was used in reference to the person in their lifetime)? Seems like a lot of pre-1700 profiles for physicians have used the prefix anachronistically.

Comments

Ooh, what a great question! I'm looking forward to hearing the answers!

Answer 1

It's something I've not thought of before. I don't tend to use the prefix usually using the post nominal letters.  How do we know the prefix wasn't commonly used until the mid 18th C?  Of course surgeons didn't have academic qualifications and even today (in England) are addressed as Mr  Mrs Miss, or Ms.

The  authors of the bios of early members of  the Royal College of Physicians use the prefix  Doctor. Sometimes  these contain quotes from their annals which suggest the prefix was used by them from earlier

1607 '' Dr Fludd, examinatus, censetur dignus qui fiat Candidatus." https://history.rcplondon.ac.uk/inspiring-physicians/robert-fludd

Here's a couple of earlier burials using the prefix  (they were cited by the RCP; I've just been looking at sample bios)

Burial Dr William Croune St Mildred in the Poultry

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/38512835/peter-chamberlen (see inscription)

Comments

I suppose there were physicians who held doctorates for whom the term may have used, but from I have seen and read, the term was not generally used for medical practitioners until the 1700s. I see the term physician and surgeon a lot, but I don't see Doctor. If the term Doctor was actually used to refer to a person in their lifetime, great, include it as a prefix, but if not, I don't think we can assume that is was used for a physician or surgeon and therefore should not use it as a prefix.

See "Doctor (title)", Wikipedia: "The usage of the title to refer to medical practitioners, even when they didn't hold doctoral degrees, was common by the mid 18th century."

And "When Did Doctors Start To Be Called Doctors?" : "Around the 18th and 19th centuries, more people started using the term as universities began conferring the degree doctor of philosophy (Ph.D.). But, since there weren't many fields awarding a Ph.D., this became limited to professions like medicine, law, theology, and sometimes even music. . . . It was also in the 1800s that the field of medicine began to blur the lines between surgeons and physicians. And these physician-surgeons started to seek higher degrees and be called doctors. They wanted to get those MDs and earn that title. . . . What made things more complicated is that the general public started calling their healers doctors, regardless of any advanced degrees. As long as they were giving out medicine, even if they were pure surgeons without an MD, they were called doctor."

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Like Chase, my usual approach is to follow the identifications found in contemporary records.

I recently encountered a profile (post-1700, I think, but still rather early) with the prefix "Doctor" and wondered if it was correct, but I didn't pursue the question.

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No objection to using evidence, it's the suggestion that the term was uncommon that I'm not sure about.

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/results/r/1?_q=Doctor&_col=200&_dss=range&_sd=1500&_ed=1750&_hb=tna

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"it's the suggestion that the term was uncommon that I'm not sure about." - Fair. I guess my point is that a lot, probably a majority, of pre-1700 profiles for physicians or surgeons that have Dr or Doctor as a prefix, should not, because they were not referred to as such (as a prefix) in their lifetime.

Answer 2

I often find people called doctor of law, of physic, of divinity or theology, or of medicine, well back into the middle ages.

For example, the following record is in Common Pleas in 1455. Second entry, "Magister Willelmus Atclyff, doctor in medicinus":
http://aalt.law.uh.edu/AALT1/H6/CP40no776/aCP40no776fronts/IMG_0395.htm

The title is as old as universities: the oldest European universities were founded before 1200.

Comments

Sure, but:

(1) Just because someone got a doctorate degree does not mean they were ever referred to in their lifetime as Doctor or Dr. For example, the record you give of Willelmus Atclyff would justify perhaps giving him the prefix Magister but not the prefix Dr or Doctor. For someone living in the US now, we wouldn't give them the prefix Doctor just because they have a juris doctor degree.

(2) The bigger point is all the 17th century and earlier physicians and surgeons who didn't have a doctorate and were never called doctor in their own lifetime, but have been given the prefix Dr or Doctor because that's what later (e.g., 19th and 20th century) sources call them or what we would call such a person today.

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The person in the record was called doctor of medicine during his lifetime.

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In the "Magister Willelmus Atclyff, doctor in medicinus", the phrase "doctor in medicinus" is used the same way people's occupations were commonly listed after their name in legal documents to identify them - eg. "Joe Smith, cordwainer". But was Dr or Doctor ever used as a prefix for him in his lifetime? Otherwise we are just inventing a prefix for him that was never used for him in his lifetime.