Medicine (Cambridge Illustrated History)

Description: 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 is professor of the social history of medicine at the Wellcome Insitute for the History of Science. He has written or edited numerous books about the history of medicine, including Western Medical Tradition (with L. Conrad, Cambridge, 1995), Drugs and Narcotics in History (with M. Teich, Cambridge, 1995), The Greatest Benefit to Mankind (Norton, 1999), and The Creation of the Modern World (Norton, 2000).

Review: 'We have come to expect from the Cambridge Illustrated History series informative and elegantly produced volumes, and this one on the history of medicine lives up to expectations.' Isis 'The book immerses the reader in the history of one of the noblest and earliest professions. It will be valuable for those in need of references or photographs for lectures or as a gift for a physician ... could serve well as a compelling textbook for medical-school courses ... The book is one of unique richness.' The New England Journal of Medicine '... every hospital library should have a copy.' AcpNews 'Previously published in hardback, this new reprint of an easy readable text, with many illustrations, partly in color, is a pleasure to read. Note the low price - A real bargain!' Pediatric Endocrinology Reviews

Contents: Introduction; 1. The history of disease Kenneth F. Kiple; 2. The rise of medicine Vivian Nutton; 3. What is disease? Roy Porter; 4. Primary care Edward Shorter; 5. Medical science Roy Porter; 6. Hospitals and surgery Roy Porter; 7. Drug treatment and the rise in pharmacology Miles Weatherall; 8. Mental illness Roy Porter; 9. Medicine, society, and the state John Pickstone; 10. Looking to the future Geoff Watts; Reference guide: Chronology; Major human diseases; Notes; Further reading; Index of medical personalities; General index; Picture acknowledgements.


Author Biography: 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.