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The Coalbrookdale Doctors
Dr. Richard Moore

cover They were years of unprecedented progress in industry, society, democracy, education and science, but of war in Europe, America and at sea. The last decades of the Eighteenth and first of the Nineteenth Centuries saw changes that ushered in the modern world.
Nowhere more so than in the Shropshire village of Coalbrookdale where, perhaps more than anywhere else at this date, technical innovation led to the use of iron in bridges, buildings, sea-going ships, steam engines and railways.
But also in the world of medicine, Coalbrookdale was subject to radical change as scientific discoveries brought new attitudes and a better understanding of life and disease.
Throughout this momentous period, three generations of one family ran a medical practice in Coalbrookdale.
Published:1st Feb 2015
Paperback:198 pages
Price:£12.99
ISBN:9-781909-644304
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Dr Richard Moore’s exhaustive research has uncovered how this medical family skilfully adopted advances in knowledge, developed their education and played their part in creating the profession of General Practitioner as we know it today. This original account demonstrates how, in the microcosm of Coalbrookdale, the experiences of one family mirror the democratic, social, industrial and scientific changes of the early Industrial Revolution.

Dr. Richard Moore is a fellow of the Royal College of General Practitioners and a sometime examiner for the MRCGP, its membership examination. He was in practice in Shrewsbury for more than thirty years. His first book was Leeches to Lasers (Morrigan 2002), the story of seven (now nine) generations of his family as doctors. In 2009 he was awarded a PhD at the University of Birmingham for a thesis titled Competitors for Custom, on the development of medical practice in 18th and 19th century Shropshire. His last book was titled Shropshire Doctors and Quacks (Amberley 2011).

Reviews...

Michael Darby, descendant of Abraham Darby
It gives me much pleasure to commend this book that describes so well the transition in Coalbrookdale from the work of the apothecary-surgeons to doctors “… at the dawn of the modern medical profession”

Jonathan Reinharz, Professor of Medicine, University of Birmingham, in Midland History
There is enough of interest in these pages to satisfy anyone desiring a glimpse into the history of general practice over a century which saw significant changes introduced to both medical training and therapies. It is also recommended to regional historians, especially anyone with an interest in Shropshire and, of course, the Ironbridge Gorge.