You may have to register before you can download all our books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Many diseases discussed here--endstage renal disease, rheumatic fever, parasitic infectious diseases, coronary thrombosis--came to be defined, redefined, and renamed over the course of several centuries. As these essays show, the concept of disease has also been used to frame culturally resonant behaviors: suicide, homosexuality, anorexia nervosa, chronic fatigue syndrome. Disease is also framed by public policy, as the cases of industrial disability and of forensic psychiatry demonstrate. Medical institutions, as managers of people with disease, come to have vested interests in diagnoses, as the histories of facilities to treat tuberculosis or epilepsy reveal. Ultimately, the existence and conquest of disease serves to frame a society's sense of its own "healthiness" and to give direction to social reforms.
At a time when clinical care and biomedical research generate as much angst as they offer cures, this volume provides valuable insight into how the practice of medicine has evolved, where it is going, and how lessons from history can improve its prognosis.--Thomas S. Huddle, M.D., Ph.D. "Journal of the History of Medicine"
A life of one of the most successful American physicians of the nineteenth century.
Portrays the development of modern medicine through the lives and work of six pioneers
America has a long tradition of middle-class radicalism, albeit one that intellectual orthodoxy has tended to obscure. The Radical Middle Class seeks to uncover the democratic, populist, and even anticapitalist legacy of the middle class. By examining in particular the independent small business sector or petite bourgeoisie, using Progressive Era Portland, Oregon, as a case study, Robert Johnston shows that class still matters in America. But it matters only if the politics and culture of the leading player in affairs of class, the middle class, is dramatically reconceived. This book is a powerful combination of intellectual, business, labor, medical, and, above all, political history. Its a...
Dangerously Sleepy explores the fraught relations between overwork, sleep deprivation, and public health. Health and labor historian Alan Derickson charts the cultural and political forces behind the overvaluation—and masculinization—of wakefulness in the United States.
The history of medicine has come to occupy a significant place in our understanding of modern society and the American cultural fabric. To fully understand and appreciate American medicine in the twentieth century one must contend with the twin processes of specialization and professionalization. Grand Rounds considers the critical period for these two processes, the years between World War I and the Vietnam era. A diverse group of contributors (clinicians as well as historians and "participant-observers") outline broad themes involved in the evolution of modern internal medicine and trace the origins of subspecialties such as cardiology, gastroenterology, rheumatology, infectious diseases, and nephrology. Paul Beeson, Rosemary Stevens, and others discuss the literature, diagnostic approaches, and therapeutic research in the field. Grand Rounds will be of interest to historians of science and medicine, students of American civilization, and medical practitioners.
How did American doctors come to be licensed on the terms we now take for granted? Licensed to Practice begins with an 1891 shooting in Wheeling, West Virginia, that left one doctor dead and another on trial for his life. Formerly close friends, the doctors had fallen out over the issue of medical licensing. Historian James C. Mohr calls the murder “a sorry personal consequence of the far larger and historically significant battle among West Virginia’s physicians over the future of their profession.” Through most of the nineteenth century, anyone could call themselves a doctor and could practice medicine on whatever basis they wished. But an 1889 U.S. Supreme Court case, Dent v. West V...
This edited volume explores the scope of interdisciplinary linguistics and includes voices from scholars in different disciplines within the social sciences and humanities, as well as different sub-disciplines within linguistics. Chapters within this volume offer a range of perspectives on interdisciplinary studies, represent a connection between different disciplines, or demonstrate an application of interdisciplinarity within linguistics. The volume is divided into three sections: perspectives, connections, and applications. Perspectives The goal of this section is to address more generally the definition(s) of and value of multi-, trans-, and inter-disciplinary work. In what areas and for...