The Cambridge Illustrated History of Medicine

Front Cover
Roy Porter
Cambridge University Press, Jul 30, 2001 - Medical - 400 pages
Surveys the rise of medicine in the West from the earliest times to the present day, & glimpses medicine's future. Annotation. Against the backdrop of unprecedented concern for the future of health care, The Cambridge Illustrated History of Medicine surveys the rise of medicine in the West from classical times to the present. Covering both the social and scientific history of medicine, this lavishly-illustrated volume traces the chronology of key developments and events, while at the same time engaging with the issues, discoveries, and controversies that have beset and characterized medical progress. The authors weave a narrative that connects disease, doctors, primary care, surgery, the rise of hospitals, drug treatment and pharmacology, mental illness and psychiatry. This volume emphasizes the crucial developments of the past 150 years, but also examines classical, medieval, and Islamic and East Asian medicine. Authoritative and accessible, The Cambridge Illustrated History of Medicine is for readers wanting a lively and informative introduction to medical history. Roy Porter has written or edited numerous books on the history of medicine. Two recent works include The Western Medical Tradition (with L. Conrad, CUP 1995) and Drugs and Narcotics in History (with M. Teich, CUP 1995) Annotation. The aim of this textbook is to set the major changes of the practice of medicine in their historical context. Authors trace the tradition as it arose out of Ancient Greece, examine the transformations stimulated by the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution, and consider the advances of the 19th century. Further topics include drug treatment and the rise of pharmacology; mental illness; medicine, society, and the state; and future trends.

From inside the book

Contents

Introduction
6
2
52
3
70
4
87
5
136
6
155
7
215
8
260
9
304
Looking to the future
342
REFERENCE GUIDE
373
General index
394
380
400
Copyright

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2001)

Roy Porter is Professor in the Social History of Medicine at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, London, and has taught previously at the University of Cambridge and at UCLA. Among his many influential books in the field are Mind Forg'd Manacles: Madness in England from the Restoration to the Regency; A Social History of Madness; Health for Sale: Quackery in England, 1660-1850; Doctor of Society: Thomas Beddoes and the Sick Trade in Late Enlightenment England; London: A Social History; and (co-authored with Dorothy Porter) In Sickness and in Health: the British Experience, 1650-1850 and Patient's Progress.

Bibliographic information