James Mackenzie, General Practitioner: a modest contribution to the archaeology of clinical reason

Abstract

This paper focuses on the work of the influential general practitioner and heart specialist, James Mackenzie (1853–1925), and seeks to reconstruct ‐ using some of the perspectives broadly associated with actor‐network theory as well as Michel Foucault's work on clinical medicine ‐ the epistemological rationality of his medical programme as a particular kind of network of knowledge. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of some of the implications of this analysis both for the sociological study of medical knowledge, and for our contemporary ideals of medical practice. Copyright © 1993, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved