"The artful science:" medicine's self-image in the 1890's

Carried on the coattails of the century's scientific and technological revolution, Anglo-American medicine acquired a self-image and sense of purpose that belied its fragile roots. The growth of the laboratory, the popularity of the inductive method, the beginnings of government and private support for medical education, the envy of the German university experience and the new-found importance of medical societies fell in easy step with Victorian pride and the national imperative. America's medical education system grew at a slower pace, inhibited by a laissez-faire bias which reinforced the weaker aspects of its egalitarian society. The fabric for America's medical reform lay in the European clinical experience of its better educated physicians, and the transference of their enthusiasm and reform zeal into the university and medical society environment. By the 1890s, the artful science of medicine had combined the benefits of a century's scientific endeavors with the age-old instinct for useful application.