In recent years the study of nursing history in Britain has been transformed by the application of concepts and methods from the social sciences to original sources. The myths and legends which have grown up through a century of anecdotal writing have been chipped away to reveal the complex story of an occupation shaped and reshaped by social and technological change. Most of the work has been scattered in monographs, journals and edited collections. The skills of a social historian, a sociologist and a graduate nurse have been brought together to rethink the history of modern nursing in the light of the latest scholarship. The account starts by looking at the type of nursing care available in 1800. This was usually provided by the sick person's family or household servants. It traces the interdependent growth of general nursing and the modern hospital and examines the separate origins and eventual integration of mental nursing, district nursing, health visiting and midwifery. It concludes with reflections on the prospects for nursing in the year 2000.

A Social History of Medicine traces the development of medical practice from the Industrial Revolution right through to the twentieth century. Drawing on a wide range of source material, it charts the changing relationship between patients and practitioners over this period, exploring the impact made by institutional care, government intervention and scientific discovery. The study illuminates the extent to which medical assistance really was available to patients over the period, by focusing on provincial areas and using local sources. It introduces a variety of contemporary medical practitioners, some of them hitherto unknown and with fascinating intricate details of their work. The text offers an extensive thematic survey, including coverage of: * institutions such as hospitals, dispensaries, asylums and prisons * midwifery and nursing * infections and how changes in science have affected disease control * contraception, war, and the NHS.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"An Introduction to the Social History of Medicine is a one-volume, detailed survey of the major debates and themes in the history of western medicine, from the early modern period to the present. Combining specialized knowledge with new ways of thinking about the subject, this lucidly written, illustrated text brings together the latest research with a fresh approach to the history of medicine and explores traditional views and questions existing orthodoxies. Features: Surveys the major topics and themes in the history of medicine - Assesses current historiography - Covers the experience of sickness, as well as its treatment - Provides chronologies and guides to further reading to aid further study. This accessible but challenging new textbook is the essential introduction to the history of medicine"--Provided by publisher.