In the nineteenth century, tens of thousands of women died each year from childbed fever. The Carters describe birthing conditions and medical practices in Vienna during the time when young Semmelweis began to work in a maternity clinic there. He discovered that childbed fever arose because medical personnel did not wash adequately after dissecting corpses before doing vaginal examinations of women in labor. After he required students to disinfect themselves, the mortality rate immediately dropped. However, Semmelweis's views were not accepted by the senior physicians who believed the...
In the nineteenth century, tens of thousands of women died each year from childbed fever. The Carters describe birthing conditions and medical prac...
Pain and suffering, once associated with punishment for sin, became regarded as a purposeless evil that was hostile to human welfare. The works of Thomas Beddoes, Coleridge, and Shelley embody the change in attitude toward suffering and lay the groundwork for the general use of anesthesia in modern medicine. Papper contends that there was no real societal readiness to treat or prevent pain until the idea of the worth of the common man or woman was established by the upheaval of the French Revolution. The humanitarian concepts that we take for granted were relatively recent developments in...
Pain and suffering, once associated with punishment for sin, became regarded as a purposeless evil that was hostile to human welfare. The works of ...
This work identifies significant factors influencing, on the one hand, the historical pattern of sexually acquired diseases in 12 countries in Asia and the Pacific and, on the other hand, factors shaping the government and community responses to that pattern. Contributors analyze the role of supranational forces such as colonialism and economic modernization as well as distinctive national factors. The geographic scope is wide, extending from India in the west, to China in the east, to Australia in the south. The chronological scope is equally ambitious and contributors review two...
This work identifies significant factors influencing, on the one hand, the historical pattern of sexually acquired diseases in 12 countries in Asia...
In a series of case studies of sexually transmitted disease and HIV/AIDS from around Africa, contributors examine the social, cultural, and political-economic bases of risk, transmission, and response to epidemic disease. This book brings together major contributions to the historical study of epidemic disease in developing countries and considers how particular constellations of cultural, social, political, and economic factors in different countries have affected the historical patterns of disease and collective (official and community) response to them. This book is a companion volume...
In a series of case studies of sexually transmitted disease and HIV/AIDS from around Africa, contributors examine the social, cultural, and politic...
Olumwullah examines disease, biomedicine, and processes of social change among the AbaNyole of Western Kenya and analyzes the introduction and use of biomedicine as a cultural tool of domination by British colonizers and the AbaNyole's reaction to this therapeutic tradition and its technologies. He argues that biomedicine is a tool that the colonizers used to think about the colonized. Through an examination of ideas about order and disorder in Nyole cosmology, Nyole experiences with new diseases and biomedical practices that were brought to bear on these diseases; and how these...
Olumwullah examines disease, biomedicine, and processes of social change among the AbaNyole of Western Kenya and analyzes the introduction and use ...
An exploration of the policy dilemmas with new fertility control techniques, this volume offers the first comprehensive treatment of the subject's technical, legal, and political dimensions. Robert H. Blank provides a detailed discussion of current state laws and court decisions, and extensive analysis of new fertility control techniques and their social and policy implications.
Blank describes the political, institutional, and constitutional context of fertility control in the United States, examining the relationship between social structures and rapid advances in biomedical...
An exploration of the policy dilemmas with new fertility control techniques, this volume offers the first comprehensive treatment of the subject's ...
In 1882, Robert Koch discovered the TB bacillus, signaling a redirection of medical thinking from the trial and error guesswork of individual experience toward medical care based upon science. Professor Ellison uses the career of Edward Livingston Trudeau (1848-1915), a recognized leader in the American crusade against tuberculosis, to examine the development of medical science as a human process.
Ellison asks how the germ theory influenced the thinking of physicians like Trudeau; how it affected the sanitorium treatment of patients, and even the development of laboratory studies....
In 1882, Robert Koch discovered the TB bacillus, signaling a redirection of medical thinking from the trial and error guesswork of individual exper...
The conquest of scurvy by James Cook during his three famous circumnavigations of 1768-1780 was a product of Cook's character, of his leadership, and of the wisdom of the naturalists who accompanied Cook; specialists who helped locate antiscorbutic plants during stopovers. In this book, Dr. Cuppage shows the importance of careful observation, and of controlled clinical trials. This is an account of the lasting medical effects of Cook's voyages as he tried to liberate mankind from the scourge of scurvy. Cuppage captures the sense of adventure that explorers and scientists share.
The conquest of scurvy by James Cook during his three famous circumnavigations of 1768-1780 was a product of Cook's character, of his leadership, a...