Open University Set Books

The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity

Amazon.co.uk ReviewSynopsis
Samuel Johnson once called the medical profession "the greatest benefit to mankind." In the 20th century, the quality of that benefit has improved more and more rapidly than at any other comparable time in history. With all the capabilities of modern medicine's practitioners, however, we as a people are as worried about our health as ever.

Roy Porter, a social historian of medicine at London's Wellcome Institute, has written a dauntingly thick history of how medical thinking and practice has risen to the challenges of disease through the centuries. But delve into its pages and you'll find one marvellous piece of history after another. The obvious highlights are touched upon--Hippocrates introduces his oath, Pasteur homogenises, Jonas Salk produces the polio vaccine and so on--but there's also Dr. Francis Willis' curing of the madness of King George III, W.T.G. Morton's aggressive use of ether in surgery and research on digestion conducted using a man with a stomach fistula (if you don't know what that means, you may not want to know). Porter is straightforward about his deliberate focus on Western medical traditions, citing their predominant influence on global medicine, and with The Greatest Benefit to Mankind he has produced a volume worthy of that tradition's legacy.Medicine advances ever faster, and with it not just a capacity to overcome sickness, but to transform the very nature of life. Starting in ancient times, this text charts how this health revolution came about and how life for human beings in the West has ceased, in Hobbes' memorable phrase, to be "nasty, brutish and short." Porter plots the growth of medical specialisms - pharmacology, physiology, anatomy, neurology, bacteriology - and the institutions of medicine - the hospital and asylum - to show how medical advances have often created as many problems as they have solved. The book also shows how the ancient Egyptians treated incipient baldness with a mixture of hippopotamus, lion, crocodile, goose, snake and ibex fat; how a mystery epidemic devastated ancient Athens and brought to an end the domination of that great city; and how lemons did as much as Nelson to defeat Napolean.

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Health, Disease and Society in Europe, 1500-1800: A Sourcebook

Synopsis
The period from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment constitutes a vital phase in the history of European medicine. Elements of continuity with the classical and medieval past are evident in the persistence of a humoural-based view of the body and of illness. As the same time new theories of the body emerged to challenge established ideas in medical circles. In recent years, scholars have explored this terrain with increasingly fascinating results, often revising our previous understanding of issues relating to the way in which early modern Europeans discussed the body, health and disease. In order to understand these and related processes, historians are increasingly aware of the way in which every aspect of medical care and provision in early modern Europe was shaped by the social, religious, political and cultural concerns of the age. This volume contains a comprehensive selection of classical writing and up-to-date research in the field as well as extracts from contemporary sources, providing vivid and detailed accounts of some of the key aspects of medical thought and practice in the period.

These are arranged by themes and so complement the companion volume of esssays in "The Healing Arts: Health, Disease ad Society in Europe, 1500-1800". They are also accompanied by brief, scholarly introductions to ensure that they are readily accessible to both the specialist and general reader.

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Health, Disease and Society in Europe, 1800-1930: A Sourcebook

Synopsis
Health, disease and society in Europe, 1800-1930 provides readers with unrivalled access to a comprehensive range of sources on major themes in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century medicine. The book covers issues such as the changing role of the hospital, disease, colonial and imperial medicine, women, war, the emergence of modern surgery, welfare and the state, and the growth of asylum. Extracts from contemporary writings vividly illustrate key aspects of medical thought and practice, while a selection of classic historical research and up-to-date work in the field gives a sense of our understanding of medical history. Introductions make the sources accessible both to the student and the interested general reader. The extracts are arranged by topic and thus complement the essays in the companion volume Medicine transformed: Health, disease and society in Europe, 1800-1930.

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