ABSTRACT
This chapter explores what Victorian science and medicine were in 1820, who practiced them, where, and how, with particular emphasis on science as spectacle and communication and on theories of evolution before Charles Darwin. In addition medicine, like science, professionalized, with doctors, nurses, and midwives developing legal qualifications and professional organizations. Until mid-century, English universities were not only socially exclusive but were dismissive of and distinct from the worlds of industry, science, and medicine. Mesmerism combined science, medicine, spectacle, and theater in an irresistible blend. In addition, several developments increased medicine's efficacy and the public's respect for medical men. After 1860 science began to be a more respected field, and both technology and medicine became integrated into science and higher education. Some changes in dominant medical and scientific ideas would ultimately prove correct and improve people's health.
