Between 1890 and 1891 the British Medical Journal and the Lancet both printed a series of letters and articles concerning the use of medical language in the lay press. These pieces reveal mixed reactions to the dissemination of medical knowledge amongst the general populace. The responses ranged from fears of medicine losing its professional prestige to amusement over the confusion and possible anxiety such articles may cause. Yet, all of these reactions reinforce the communal agreement that medicine was an elite profession which must maintain its independence from popular culture.

However, there were some debates circulating in the medical community at the end of the nineteenth century which reveal medicine’s precarious relationship with popular culture. For instance, the theory of maternal impressions, that is, the notion that a severe shock or surprise experienced by a pregnant woman would leave a mark on or alter the development of her foetus, was still a contested belief in medicine at the end of the century. When presenting cases of ‘monstrosity’ before medical societies or reporting cases to the Lancet or British Medical Journal, many doctors would cite a particular experience had by the mother as the cause for the deformity. Some would even note their patient’s attendance to a freak show. In this way, some medical practitioners shared a belief that still had currency among the general public. Indeed, the belief in maternal impressions helped many showmen promote the performers within their freak shows. With developments in the study of embryology and teratology, the belief in maternal impressions within medicine was increasingly challenged in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.

This paper will delve into the relationship between medicine and popular culture at the end of the nineteenth century. In particular, it will focus on the contradiction posed by the professional resistance to sharing knowledge with the population at large, yet the reluctance of some medical practitioners to move on from the popular belief in maternal impressions.