title: [Medical certificates on the healthcare market: professionalised testimony and the burgeoning administrative apparatus in the early nineteenth century].
abstract: This article deals with medical certificates issued by the physician Cäsar Adolf Bloesch (1804-1863) from Biel/Bienne. It aims at examining this service as a part of the medical market in the early nineteenth century. Firstly, it focuses on four administrative procedures which show how the standardized medical certificate was established at the time. Secondly, it examines how expert testimony in general and medical testimony in particular depended on public and private demand. Finally, this study argues that by attesting health or illness, physicians could gain their patients' confidence and increase their own social capital. For patients a medical certificate could imply release from moral judgement.
authors: Institut für Medizingeschichte, Bühlstrasse 26, CH-3012 Bern. lina.gafner@img.unibe.ch
authors: Lina
authors: L
authors: Gafner
mesh_terms: D002568:Certification / Q000266:history* / Q000592:standards; D005104:Expert Testimony; D019981:Health Care Sector / Q000266:history*; D006298:Health Services Administration / Q000266:history; D049672:History, 19th Century; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D013557:Switzerland