The movement promoted a rational skepticism toward claims of medical expertise that were based on personal authority, and encouraged ordinary people to understand the pragmatics of health care.
[7] Gunn emphasized an active relationship between physician and patient in the form of dialogue, directed toward understanding sickness in the context of the individual's psychology and everyday habits.
Gunn's work Domestic Medicine, for instance, provided detailed instructions on delivering babies; performing vaccinations, abortions, and minor surgeries; and recognizing and treating the symptoms of disease.
[13] The egalitarian impulse encouraged ordinary people to acquire knowledge, but this informed awareness of what it took to obtain a high level of expertise eventually led to a proliferation of medical schools and licensing — that is, to a greater emphasis on credentials.
The same democratic rationality that had provoked skepticism about medical authority became logically allied with advances in science, which in turn undermined appeals to common sense by establishing methodologies of expertise.