What did doctors wear in the 1700s?

Answer 1

There were few clothing distinctions between educated persons and laypersons except when an educated person was also well to do. But the more usual route of education in the 1700s was that men first became apprentices to doctors and these apprentices were not well off. The apprentices went on to become doctors. So the majority of doctors even up through the 1800s dressed just like commoners or laypersons. In rural areas, this would have especially been the norm. Most men in the 1700s wore a long-sleeve, high collar shirt with a string closure at the neck and often with "ruffly" cuffs, a vest and waistcoat, knee-length pants with a draw string waist, and with a type of long sock that went above the knees (these were NOT tights like we know today), pointed toe shoes with a large buckle across the forefoot, and a 3-cornered or 4-cornered hat. Most men in the 1700s had shoulder length or longer hair, tied in a ponytail with a ribbon or string. The British influences in "fashions" surely changed as men and women moved from the eastern seaboard to the western wilderness and from the southern ports into new territories, since British fashions did not fare as well on walking paths (Indian trails) and when farming.

As well, many doctors bartered for services with whatever the family could "pay"-- e.g., eggs, a pig, a cow, a pie.... all depending on "how long" the doctor "attended" the patient and what a family could give. Doctors were more "servitude practitioners" rather than interested in money, similar to a preacher's way of life. As way of life changed, with fewer doctors also being farmers, they didn't want or need livestock anymore; the tradition of bartering slowly ended and people paid money for services rendered.

Doctors in prior centuries did NOT wear or carry what we now recognize as "traditional doctor clothing", such as lab coat, stethoscope, "black bag". For example, the wood and tube stethoscope was not invented until the mid 1800s in France; it took many years to be adopted in the US. Black bags at first were multi-colored fabric bags often with a strap worn across the body. Lab coats did not fully come into use until after identification of "germs"--bacteria and viruses--between World War I and World War II but primarily after WWII. The "white coat" was to denote cleanliness, as well as set "a Physician" apart from others.