Books in brief: The Enlightened Mr Parkinson by Cherry Lewis

The Enlightened Mr Parkinson, by Cherry Lewis (Icon Books, £20)

During the last two decades of the 18th century, the organisation of medical practice in Britain was changing from the three-way division of apothecaries, surgeons and physicians into the more familiar model of the general practitioner and specialist consultant. This change was driven largely by the competition for fee-paying patients, explains Cherry Lewis in her biography of James Parkinson, after whom Parkinson’s disease is named.

Starting out as an apothecary, by the time of his death in December 1824 Parkinson was a highly…