The History of Medicine: A Very Short Introduction

Author: William F. Bynum
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 019921543X
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 185

Book Description
Against the backdrop of unprecedented concern for the future of health care, this i Very Short Introduction/i surveys the history of medicine from classical times to the present. Focussing on the key turning points in the history of Western medicine - such as the advent of hospitals and the rise of experimental medicine - but also offering reflections on alternative traditions such as Chinese medicine, Bill Bynum offers insights into medicine's past, while at the same time engaging with contemporary issues, discoveries, and controversies.

Public Health: A Very Short Introduction

Author: Virginia Berridge
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191002143
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 161

Book Description
Public health is a term much used in the media, by health professionals, and by activists. At the national or the local level there are ministries or departments of public health, whilst international agencies such as the World Health Organisation promote public health policies, and regional organisations such as the European Union have public health funding and policies. But what do we mean when we speak about 'public health'? In this Very Short Introduction Virginia Berridge explores the areas which fall under the remit of public health, and explains how the individual histories of different countries have come to cause great differences in the perception of the role and responsibilities of public health organisations. Thus, in the United States litigation on public health issues is common, but state involvement is less, while some Scandinavian countries have a tradition of state involvement or even state ownership of industries such as alcohol in connection with public health. In its narrowest sense, public health can refer to the health of a population, the longevity of individual members, and their freedom from disease, but it can also be anticipatory, geared to the prevention of illness, rather than simply the provision of care and treatment. In the way public health deals with healthy as well as sick people it is therefore a separate concept from health services, which deal with the sick population. Drawing on a wide range of international examples, Berridge demonstrates the central role of history to understanding the amorphous nature of public health today. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

History of Medicine

Author: Jacalyn Duffin
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487539843
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 555

Book Description
Jacalyn Duffin's History of Medicine is one of the leading texts used to teach the history of the medical profession. Emphasizing broad concepts rather than names and dates, it has also been widely appreciated by general readers for more than twenty years. Based on sound scholarship and meticulous research, History of Medicine incorporates pithy examples from a range of periods and places and is infused with the author’s characteristic wit. The third edition has been completely revised to highlight new scholarship on the past and incorporate significant medical events of the most recent decade – including new technologies, drug shortages, medical assistance in dying, and recent outbreaks of infectious diseases such as Ebola, H1N1, Zika, and COVID-19. The book is organized around themes of scientific and clinical interest, such as anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, surgery, obstetrics, medical education, health-care delivery, and public health. It includes a chapter on how to approach research in medical history, updated with new resources. History of Medicine is sensitive to the power of historical research to inform current health-care practice and enhance cultural understanding.

History: A Very Short Introduction

Author: John Arnold
Publisher: Oxford Paperbacks
ISBN: 019285352X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 152

Book Description
Starting with an examination of how historians work, this "Very Short Introduction" aims to explore history in a general, pithy, and accessible manner, rather than to delve into specific periods.

A Short History of Medicine

Author: Erwin H. Ackerknecht
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421419556
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Book Description
A bestselling history of medicine, enriched with a new foreword, concluding essay, and bibliographic essay. Erwin H. Ackerknecht’s A Short History of Medicine is a concise narrative, long appreciated by students in the history of medicine, medical students, historians, and medical professionals as well as all those seeking to understand the history of medicine. Covering the broad sweep of discoveries from parasitic worms to bacilli and x-rays, and highlighting physicians and scientists from Hippocrates and Galen to Pasteur, Koch, and Roentgen, Ackerknecht narrates Western and Eastern civilization’s work at identifying and curing disease. He follows these discoveries from the library to the bedside, hospital, and laboratory, illuminating how basic biological sciences interacted with clinical practice over time. But his story is more than one of laudable scientific and therapeutic achievement. Ackerknecht also points toward the social, ecological, economic, and political conditions that shape the incidence of disease. Improvements in health, Ackerknecht argues, depend on more than laboratory knowledge: they also require that we improve the lives of ordinary men and women by altering social conditions such as poverty and hunger. This revised and expanded edition includes a new foreword and concluding biographical essay by Charles E. Rosenberg, Ackerknecht’s former student and a distinguished historian of medicine. A new bibliographic essay by Lisa Haushofer explores recent scholarship in the history of medicine.

The Oxford Handbook of the History of Medicine

Author: Mark Jackson
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199546495
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 691

Book Description
In three sections, the Oxford Handbook of the History of Medicine celebrates the richness and variety of medical history around the world. It explore medical developments and trends in writing history according to period, place, and theme.

Pain

Author: Rob Boddice
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198738560
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 153

Book Description
What is pain? Has the experience of pain always been the same? How is pain related to the emotions, to culture, and to pleasure? What happens to us when we feel pain? How does pain work in the body and in the brain? In this Very Short Introduction, Rob Boddice explores the history, culture, and medical science of pain. Charting the shifting meanings of pain across time and place, he focuses on how the experience and treatment of pain have changed. He describes historical hierarchies of pain experience that related pain to social class and race, and the privileging of human states of pain over that of other animals. From the pain concepts of classical antiquity to expressions of pain in contemporary art, and modern medical approaches to the understanding, treatment, and management of pain, Boddice weaves a multifaceted account of this central human experience. Ranging from neuroscientific innovations in experimental medicine to the constructionist arguments of social scientists, pain is shown to resist a timeless definition. Pain is physical and emotional, of body and mind, and is always experienced subjectively and contextually. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

History of Medicine

Author: Jacalyn Duffin
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 0802095569
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 521

Book Description
Jacalyn Duffin's History of Medicine has for ten years been one of the leading texts used to teach medical and nursing students the history of their profession. It has also been widely used in history courses and by general readers. An accessible overview of medical history, this new edition is greatly expanded, including more information on medicine in the United States, Great Britain, and in other European countries. The book continues to be organized conceptually around the major fields of medical endeavor such as anatomy, pharmacology, obstetrics, and psychiatry and has grown to include a new chapter on public health. Years of pedagogic experience, medical developments, and reader feedback have led to new sections throughout the book on topics including bioethics, forensics, genetics, reproductive technology, clinical trials, and recent outbreaks of BSE, West Nile Virus, SARS, and anthrax. Up to date and filled with pithy examples and teaching tools such as a searchable online bibliography, History of Medicine continues to demonstrate the power of historical research to inform current health care practice and enhance cultural understanding.

Drugs

Author: Leslie L. Iversen
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198745796
Category : Drug abuse
Languages : en
Pages : 145

Book Description
The twentieth century saw a remarkable upsurge of research on drugs, with major advances in the treatment of bacterial and viral infections, heart disease, stomach ulcers, cancer, and metal illnesses. These, along with the introduction of the oral contraceptive, have altered all of our lives. There has also been an increase in the recreational use and abuse of drugs in the Western world. This Very Short Introduction, in its second edition, gives a non-technical account of how drugs work in the body. Reviewing both legal (alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine) and illegal drugs, Les Iversen discusses why some are addictive, and whether drug laws need reform. ABOUT THE SERIES The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

HIV/AIDS: A Very Short Introduction

Author: Alan Whiteside OBE
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191578185
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 174

Book Description
HIV/AIDS is without doubt the worst epidemic to hit humankind since the Black Death. The first case was identified in 1981; by 2004 it was estimated that about 40 million people were living with the disease, and about 20 million had died. Despite rapid scientific advances there is still no cure and the drugs are expensive and toxic. Because of controversies and taboos surrounding safe drug usage and prostitution, the numbers of people infected continues to rise. However, it is in the developing world and especially parts of Africa that the real catastrophe is unfolding. In some of the worst affected countries life expectancy has plummeted to below 35 years, which has led to a serious decline in economic growth, a sharp rise in orphaning, and the imminent collapse of health care systems. The news is not all bleak though. There have been unprecedented breakthroughs in understanding diseases and developing drugs. Because the disease is so closely linked to sexual activity and drug use, the need to understand and change behaviour has caused us to reassess what it means to be human and how we should operate in the globalising world. This Very Short Introduction provides an introduction to the disease, tackling the science, the international and local politics, the fascinating demographics, and the devastating consequences of the disease, and explores how we have — and must — respond. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.