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A Contagious Cause
Is cancer a contagious disease? In the late nineteenth century this idea, and attending efforts to identify a cancer “germ,” inspired fear and ignited controversy. Yet speculation that cancer might be contagious also contained a kernel of hope that the strategies used against infectious diseases, especially vaccination, might be able to subdue this dread disease. Today, nearly one in six cancers are thought to have an infectious cause, but the path to that understanding was twisting and turbulent. A Contagious Cause is the first book to trace the century-long hunt for a human cancer virus in America, an effort whose scale exceeded that of the Human Genome Project. The government’s ...
After the Wrath of God
On a cold February morning in 1987, amidst freezing rain and driving winds, a group of protesters stood outside of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Amherst, Massachusetts. The target of their protest was the minister inside, who was handing out condoms to his congregation while delivering a sermon about AIDS, dramatizing the need for the church to confront the seemingly ever-expanding crisis. The minister's words and actions were met with a standing ovation from the overflowing audience, but he could not linger to enjoy their applause. Having received threats in advance of the service, he dashed out of the sanctuary immediately upon finishing his sermon. Such was the climate for religiou...
Therapeutic Revolutions
When asked to compare the practice of medicine today to that of a hundred years ago, most people will respond with a story of therapeutic revolution: Back then we had few effective remedies, but now we have more (and more powerful) tools to fight disease, from antibiotics to psychotropics to steroids to anticancer agents. This collection challenges the historical accuracy of this revolutionary narrative and offers instead a more nuanced account of the process of therapeutic innovation and the relationships between the development of medicines and social change. These assembled histories and ethnographies span three continents and use the lived experiences of physicians and patients, consumers and providers, and marketers and regulators to reveal the tensions between universal claims of therapeutic knowledge and the actual ways these claims have been used and understood in specific sites, from postwar West Germany pharmacies to twenty-first century Nigerian street markets. By asking us to rethink a story we thought we knew, Therapeutic Revolutions offers invaluable insights to historians, anthropologists, and social scientists of medicine.
The Science of Human Perfection
Almost daily we hear news stories, advertisements, and scientific reports that promise genetic medicine will make us live longer, enable doctors to identify and treat diseases before they start, and individualize our medical care. But surprisingly, a century ago eugenicists were making the same promises. The Science of Human Perfection traces the history of the promises of medical genetics and of the medical dimension of eugenics. The book also considers social and ethical issues that cast troublesome shadows over these fields./divDIV DIVKeeping his focus on America, science historian Nathaniel Comfort introduces the community of scientists, physicians, and public health workers who have con...
Routledge Handbook of Intoxicants and Intoxication
Bringing together scholars from different disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, this multidisciplinary Handbook offers a comprehensive critical overview of intoxicants and intoxication. The Handbook is divided into 34 chapters across eight thematic sections covering a wide range of issues, including the meanings of intoxicants; the social life of intoxicants; intoxication settings; intoxication practices; alternative approaches to the study of intoxication; scapegoated intoxicants; discourses shaping intoxication; and changing notions of excess. It explores a range of different intoxicants, including alcohol, tobacco, coffee, tea, and legal and illicit drugs, including amphetami...
Public Opinion
Twenty-four news networks, a plethora of newspapers and magazines, vibrant news-talk radio, and the ubiquitous Internet highlight our society as information-driven. With such a steady stream of hard facts mixed with publicised opinions, the mainstream population has an opinion on everything. Most anyone seems itching to argue their side of an issue, making once private beliefs fodder for general consumption. A staple of any medium's content is a regular public opinion poll on whatever hot topic strikes the editor's fancy. From the significant to the mundane, public opinion permeates society. Accordingly, politicians have taken note of these opinions and adopted stands and values that put them in tune with public sentiment. An understanding of the nature of public opinion, therefore, is paramount in today's world. This book assembles and presents a carefully chosen bibliography on public opinion in its many forms. The collection of references makes for a valuable resource in studying and researching the critical issue of public opinion. Easy access to these pieces of literature are then provided with author, title, and subject indexes.
Common Enemies
For over a hundred years, millions of Americans have joined together to fight a common enemy by campaigning against diseases. In Common Enemies, Rachel Kahn Best asks why disease campaigns have dominated a century of American philanthropy and health policy and how the fixation on diseases shapes efforts to improve lives. Combining quantitative and qualitative analyses in an unprecedented history of disease politics, Best shows that to achieve consensus, disease campaigns tend to neglect stigmatized diseases and avoid controversial goals. But despite their limitations, disease campaigns do not crowd out efforts to solve other problems. Instead, they teach Americans to give and volunteer and build up public health infrastructure, bringing us together to solve problems and improve our lives.
