Medical Malpractice of the Past in Great Britain

  
Great Britain's influence had significant but poor effect on America's medical treatment. America, after all, was pioneered by the English; there were strong ties from the early 1600s and the Plymouth Rock landing, until the American Revolution and consequent severance from the parent country. 
 
Let's see how this influence persisted: Negative effects of the British class system affected all education and vocational aspirations of its society. Learning classics, including Greek and Latin, were the chief curricula of manor-born and would-be “fine gentlemen” Add to this factor the results of primogeniture, whereby the oldest inherit property and titles, to the exclusion of other children. And you have the inevitable end-results.
 
There were thus almost automatic careers set forth for able young men in the army, navy and ministry. Women were mindlessly relegated to home, nursery and blackboards. For Britain, this helped assure a strong military for world empire, and a vast religion network that accommodated that worthwhile environment. (Though, with an over-abundance of poor local parsons.) Nevertheless, this societal template helped reduce the supply of qualified prospects as math and science careerists and investigators. 
 
To add to the problem, the best universities Britain had to offer, at Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh and Dublin, staffed professors and teachers who were poorly paid and mostly incapable of satisfactory, worldly instructive performance. Moreover, the schools were never fully attuned to teaching sciences or math. 
 
British health procedures and accomplishments a few hundred years ago were similar to those found in other European countries with comparable economies and where governments were conducive to some scientific advancement.

Example: In advanced Britain, apothecaries far outnumbered doctors who merely lurked in the background. The apothecaries worked as “magicians” with wine, herbs, and spices and were so popular they organized their Society


By 1775, apothecaries overwhelmingly outnumbered physicians; an advanced university education for the specialty was not deemed necessary.
As for physicians, it's interesting to note that full-time poet-authors Oliver Goldsmith and Tobias Smollet, offered part-time medical services, to add to their meager literary earnings. despite their preparatory study of questionable caliber by today's standards 
  
Doctors then had to show authority with formal hat and suit attire, while sporting a walking stick. Proper appearance made a doctor, not extensive medical knowledge. To impose further insult, they had to compete with apothecaries, in order to get and retain patients. (See the Earl J. Weinreb NewsHole® comments and @BusinessNewshole tweets.)