You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
An accessible introduction to the social history of medicine in Europe during the nineteenth and early twentieth century, set within its political, cultural, intellectual and economic contexts
This handbook covers the technical, social and cultural history of surgery. It reflects the state of the art and suggests directions for future research. It discusses what is different and specific about the history of surgery - a manual activity with a direct impact on the patient’s body. The individual entries in the handbook function as starting points for anyone who wants to obtain up-to-date information about an area in the history of surgery for purposes of research or for general orientation. Written by 26 experts from 6 countries, the chapters discuss the essential topics of the field (such as anaesthesia, wound infection, instruments, specialization), specific domains areas (for example, cancer surgery, transplants, animals, war), but also innovative themes (women, popular culture, nursing, clinical trials) and make connections to other areas of historical research (such as the history of emotions, art, architecture, colonial history). Chapters 16 and 18 of this book are available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com
This book investigates a crucial-but forgotten-episode in the history of medicine. In it, Thomas Schlich systematically documents and analyzes the earliest clinical and experimental organ transplant surgeries. In so doing he lays open the historical origins of modern transplantation, offering a new and original analysis of its conceptual basis within a broader historical context. This first comprehensive account of the birth of modern transplant medicine examines how doctors and scientists between 1880 and 1930 developed the technology and rationale for performing surgical organ replacement within the epistemological and social context of experimental university medicine. The clinical applic...
This book charts the history of the worldwide introduction of an operative treatment method for broken bones, osteosynthesis, by a Swiss-based association, called AO. The success of the close cooperation between the AO's surgeons, scientists and manufacturers in establishing a complicated and risky technique as a standard treatment sheds light on the mechanisms of medical innovation at the crossroads of surgery, science and industry and the nature of modern medicine in general.
This open access book looks at the dramatic history of ovariotomy, an operation to remove ovarian tumours first practiced in the early nineteenth century. Bold and daring, surgeons who performed it claimed to be initiating a new era of surgery by opening the abdomen. Ovariotomy soon occupied a complex position within medicine and society, as an operation which symbolised surgical progress, while also remaining at the boundaries of ethical acceptability. This book traces the operation’s innovation, from its roots in eighteenth-century pathology, through the denouncement of those who performed it as ‘belly-rippers’, to its rapid uptake in the 1880s, when ovariotomists were accused of over-operating. Throughout the century, the operation was never a hair’s breadth from controversy.
Examining the complex dynamics of medical treatment options and the variable character of surgical technologies, this volume broadens and transcends the notion of technological innovation.
Offers an innovative study of visual traditions in modern medical history through debates about the causes, impact and spread of AIDS.
This book offers an analysis of the formation of contemporary hospital systems between the mid-19th century and the mid-20th century. Based on extensive archival material and a broad international literature review, it focuses on the case of the canton of Vaud, Switzerland, and uses a triple approach that discusses technological innovations, hospital management, and health policy. This research is a major contribution to the history of medicine which gives a unique overview of the formation of contemporary hospital systems.
How did epidemics, zoos, German exiles, methamphetamine, disgruntled technicians, modern bureaucracy, museums, and whipping cream shape the emergence of modern neuroscience?
Tizian Zumthurm uses the extraordinary hospital of an extraordinary man to produce novel insights into the ordinary practice of biomedicine in colonial Central Africa. His investigation of therapeutic routines in surgery, maternity care, psychiatry, and the treatment of dysentery and leprosy reveals the incoherent nature of biomedicine and not just in Africa. Reading rich archival sources against and along the grain, the author combines concepts that appeal to those interested in the history of medicine and colonialism. Through the microcosm of the hospital, Zumthurm brings to light the social worlds of Gabonese patients as well as European staff. By refusing to easily categorize colonial medical encounters, the book challenges our understanding of biomedicine as solely domineering or interactive.