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The Gynaeciorum libri, the 'Books on [the diseases of] women,' a compendium of ancient and contemporary texts on gynaecology, is the inspiration for this intensive exploration of the origins of a subfield of medicine. This collection was first published in 1566, with a second edition in 1586/8 and a third, running to 1097 folio pages, in 1597. While examining the origins of the compendium, Helen King here concentrates on its reception, looking at a range of different uses of the book in the history of medicine from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. Looking at the competition and collaboration among different groups of men involved in childbirth, and between men and women, she demonstr...
Vanities of the Eye investigates the cultural history of the senses in early modern Europe, a time in which the nature and reliability of human vision was the focus of much debate. In medicine, art theory, science, religion, and philosophy, sight came to be characterised as uncertain or paradoxical - mental images no longer resembled the external world. Was seeing really believing? Stuart Clark explores the controversial debates of the time - from the fantasies and hallucinations of melancholia, to the illusions of magic, art, demonic deceptions, and witchcraft. The truth and function of religious images and the authenticity of miracles and visions were also questioned with new vigour, affec...
The History of American Homeopathy traces the rise of lay practitioners in shaping homeopathy as a healing system and its relationship to other forms of complementary and alternative medicine in an age when conventional biomedicine remains the dominant form. omplementary medicine within the American social, scientific, religious, and philosophic traditions.
An entertaining introduction to the quacks, snake-oil salesmen, and charlatans, who often had a point Despite rampant scientific innovation in nineteenth-century America, traditional medicine still adhered to ancient healing methods, subjecting patients to bleeding, blistering, and induced vomiting and sweating. Facing such horrors, many patients ran with open arms to burgeoning practices that promised new ways to cure their ills. Hydropaths offered cures using “healing waters” and tight wet-sheet wraps. Phineas Parkhurst Quimby experimented with magnets and tried to replace “bad,” diseased thoughts with “good,” healthy thoughts, while Daniel David Palmer reportedly restored a ma...
Discover how homeopathic practice developed alongside regular medicine Explore the history of American homeopathy from its roots in the early nineteenth century, through its burgeoning acceptance, to its subsequent fall from favor. The History of American Homeopathy: The Academic Years, 1820-1935 discusses the development of homeopathy’s unorthodox therapies, the reasons behind its widespread growth and popularity, and its development during medicine’s introspective age of doubt and the emergence of scientific reductionism. Not only does the book explain homeopathy within the same social, scientific, and philosophic traditions that affected other schools of the healing art, but it also p...
From its first depictions in ancient medical literature to contemporary depictions in brain imaging, mania has been largely associated with its Greek roots, "to rage." Prior to the nineteenth century, "mania" was used interchangeably with "madness." Although its meanings shifted over time, the word remained layered with the type of madness first-century writers described: rage, fury, frenzy. Even now, the mental illness we know as bipolar disorder describes conditions of extreme irritability, inflated grandiosity, and excessive impulsivity. Spanning several centuries, Manic Minds traces the multiple ways in which the word "mania" has been used by popular, medical, and academic writers. It reveals why the rhetorical history of the word is key to appreciating descriptions and meanings of the "manic" episode." Lisa M. Hermsen examines the way medical professionals analyzed the manic condition during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and offers the first in-depth analysis of contemporary manic autobiographies: bipolar figures who have written from within the illness itself.
Fake news is bad enough. We cannot allow ourselves to be buried in fake medicine. This book looks at quackery practiced under the cover of CIM (Complementary and Integrative Medicine). Why? To inform the consumer that there is a better way to spend their health-care dollar. How? By a better understanding of science and the scientific method. A brief summary of the development of science is given, from early Greece, through the Dark Ages, and into the twenty-first century. This history emphasizes that the development of the scientific method originated purely in Western culture, contrary to other interpretations by Islam and the Chinese. It traces the origins of anti-science in the United Sta...
During the last 1500 years, Rome was the inspiration of artists, the coronation stage of German emperors, the distant desire of pilgrims, and the seat of the Roman popes. Yet Rome also lies within the northern range of P. falciparum malaria, the deadliest strain of the disease, against which northern Europeans had no intrinsic or acquired defenses. As a result, Rome lured a countless number of unacclimated transalpine Europeans to their deaths in the period from 500 to 1850 AD. This book examines how Rome's allure to European visitors and its resident malaria species impacted the historical development of Europe. It covers the environmental and biological factors at play and focuses on two of the periods when malaria potentially had the greatest impact on the continent: the heyday of the medieval German Empire and its conflicts with the papacy (c. 800-1300) and the Protestant Reformation (c.1500). Through explorations into the history of religion, empire, disease, and culture, this book tells the story of how the veritable capital of the world became the graveyard of nations.
From 1861 to 1865, the Civil War raged along the great rivers of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. While various Civil War biographies exist, none have been devoted exclusively to participants in the Western river war as waged down the Mississippi to the mouth of the Red River, and up the Ohio, the Tennessee and the Cumberland. Based on the Official Records, county histories, newspapers and internet sources, this is the first work to profile personnel involved in the fighting on these great streams. Included in this biographical encyclopedia are Union and Confederate naval officers down to the rank of mate; enlisted sailors who won the Medal of Honor, or otherwise distinguished themselves or...