the history of medicine from primitive times through early civilizations, classical antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and up to the mid-twentieth century. Edwin H. Ackerknecht accomplsihes this task and he does it with verve, clarity, and style

A classic study of medicine in antiquity, Ancient Medicine brings together much of Ludwig Edelstein's most important work on a subject that occupied him throughout a distinguished career. Included is his widely known translation of and commentary on the Hippocratic Oath, as well as his other writings on the oath which demonstrate how atypical it is of Greek medical thought. The book also explores the influence of empiricism and skepticism on Greek and Roman medicine, the practice of anatomy and dietetics in antiquity, and the relation of ancient medicine to ancient philosophy.

Focusing on the social, intellectual, and political context in which medical education took place, Thomas Neville Bonner offers a detailed analysis of transformations in medical instruction in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the United States between the Enlightenment and World War II. From a unique comparative perspective, this study considers how divergent approaches to medical instruction in these countries mirrored as well as impacted their particular cultural contexts.

The highly-anticipated follow-up book to Exploring Planet Earth, this Christian and homeschool hit takes a look at medical practices from the ancient past to the present, including biographical sketches of famous persons of medicine. Featuring study questions at the end of each chapter, coupled with dozens of illustrations, this book gives middle-school through junior-high students a strong introduction into the study of medicine. Exploring the History of Medicine is suitable for family study and discussion.

A STARTLING CONTRAST exists between the economic and health conditions experienced by the early settlers and what they had been led to expect…"

Rocca (history of medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm) offers a comprehensive study of how Galen sought to establish the brain as the regent part, or hegemonikon, of the body, using a rigorous anatomical epistemology and a set of physiological arguments that were sophisticated but necessarily limited by the knowledge of his time. He includes a general introduction for non-specialists summarizing the circumstances that led to Galen's establishment in Rome, and explaining how Galen produced and disseminated his anatomical and physiological writings while some medical sects were denying the importance of anatomical science.

In 1761 German physician Leopold Auenbrugger remarked, "It has always been the fate of those who have illustrated or improved the arts and sciences by their discoveries to be beset by envy, malice, hatred, destruction and calumny." Following Great Feuds in Science, Hellman (Beyond Your Senses) now documents 10 dramatic medical disputes.

Hal Hellman tells the stories of the ten most heated and important disputes of medical science. Featuring a mix of famous and lesser-known stories, Great Feuds in Medicine includes the fascinating accounts of William Harvey's battle with the medical establishment over his discovery of the circulation of blood; Louis Pasteur's fight over his theory of germs; and the nasty dispute between American Robert Gallo and French researcher Luc Montagnier over who discovered the HIV virus.

The ancient text translated.

In Hippocrates in a World of Pagans and Christians, Temkin shows how the perennial appeal of Hippocratic practice helped establish the relationship between scientific medicine and monotheistic religion. After the first century, Hippocratic medicine competed with powerful beliefs in religious healers from Asclepius to Jesus. Yet the ascendance of Christianity, Temkin explains, did not diminish the stature of Hippocratic science. Hippocrates, after all, saw nature as a divine and orderly power that caused growth and supplied "health." Hippocratic doctors could easily exchange the cult of Asclepius for the worship of Christ. But they could not sacrifice their belief in nature as the basis of health, disease, and therapy without renouncing their science. In compromise, the Church accepted Hippocratic medicine with the proviso that the Christian physician shun all pagan or heretical interpretations of naturalism--he must not, for example, believenature to be divine, the soul a mere function of the brain, or himself the true savior of the sick.

This work is a sampling of the Hippocratic Corpus, a collection of ancient Greek medical works. Hippocrates himself may have written some, but certainly not all, of the texts. The collection spans centuries and contains slightly differing views. This makes for a fuller picture of ancient Greek medicine. As one reads through the book, the reader gets a real sense of the medical theories and "facts" of the time. A majority of Hippocratic Writings is concerned with internal medicine and diseases.

An enormously complex and controversial figure in Medical history. Lionized and demonized, maie what you will, but this is a good start.

Iconoclast is a thoughtful, wonderfully crafted, solidly researched account of an uncommon life that far exceeds Abraham Flexner's association with reform in medical education.

Although the 1910 report became famous for its stinging description of particular medical schools -- he referred to Chicago and its 14 medical schools, for example, as "a disgrace to the State whose laws permit its existence . . . Indescribably foul . . . The plague spot of the nation" -- it was largely successful in creating a single model of medical education characterized by a philosophy that is still current. "An education in medicine," wrote Flexner, "involves both learning and learning how; the student cannot effectively know, unless he knows how."

Although the report is more than 90 years old, many of its recommendations are still relevant -- particularly those concerning the physician as a "social instrument . . . Whose function is fast becoming social and preventive, rather than individual and curative."

This fabulous anthology is sure to be a core text for history of medicine and social science classes in colleges across the country. In order to demonstrate how medical research has influenced Western cultural perspectives, the editors have collected original works from 61 different authors around nine major themes (among them 'Anatomy and Destiny,' 'Psyche and Soma,' and 'The Construction of Pain, Suffering, and Death').

The authors range from Aristotle, the Bible, and Louis Pasteur, to Masters and Johnson, Ernest Hemingway, and Simone de Beauvoir.

This book is an introduction to the history of university-trained physicians from the Middle Ages to the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. While considered elite (in reputation and rewards) and successful, we know little of their clinical effectiveness. To modern eyes their theory and practice often seems bizarre. But historical evidence reveals that they were judged on other criteria, and this book asserts that these physicians helped to construct and meet the expectations of society.

Siraisi, a leading scholar in the history of medicine, has been generous by writing this c. 200 page survey of medieval medicine in the west. What stands out about the book is her interaction with academic medicine--such as her treatment on medical education and early ventures in anatomy, and her recognition of the importance of Islamic medicine and scholarship for European medicine in the middle ages and renaissance.

The author treats surgery, pathology, anatomy, physiology, and many other subfields of learning and practice. She interacts with the Christian worldview and religious understandings of sickness and health, albeit from a standpoint of elitist medical practitioners. As an expert on Galen, her treatment of his impact in medieval Europe is worth the price alone.

Winner of the 1983 Pulitzer Prize and the Bancroft Prize in American History, this is a landmark history of how the entire American health care system of doctors, hospitals, health plans, and government programs has evolved over the last two centuries.

Despite the 20 years since its publication, Paul Starr's Pulitzer prize winner is still relevant today and in retrospect his projections made of the future of healthcare in America are surpisingly prescient.

The first book describes the development of the medical profession in early America providing a fascinating look at the social evolution of American society. The second book delineates the rise of doctors, hospitals and medical schools in latter half of the 19th to the early 20th century with the rise of science and a professional authority. The third book shifts the focus from the doctors and to the industry that medicine became as well as the various attempts at healthcare reform in response to rising healthcare costs.

This illustrated volume presents a visual tour of medicine throughout the ages. Ten parallel timetables span from prehistoric times to the present. Timelines display discoveries, anecdotes, and famous medical figures, each focusing on a specific discipline and tracing its development across thousands of years. A timeline of significant world events outside of medicine puts these developments into a larger historical context. Special topics include the story of disease, women in medicine, the development of the pharmacy, and medicine in the future. Illustrated with about 250 drawings and photographs.

The influence of Greek medical practices dating back to the fifth century B.C. has had an immeasurable impact on the development of medicine in the West over the subsequent centuries. This text is designed to cover the history of Western medicine from Classical Antiquity to 1800.

It is essential reading as a new synthesis for all students of the history of medicine.

The history begins in ancient Greece, where medical practice, under the auspices of Hippocrates and others, first looked past supernatural explanations and began to understand disease as a product of natural causes. The book examines the contributions of the great Islamic physicians, such as Rhazes (Al-Razi) and Avicenna (Ibn-Sina), who had a profound impact on the practice of medieval medicine, and it chronicles the slow growth of medical knowledge through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, illuminating the work of figures such as Paracelsus, Vesalius, and William Harvey (who explained how blood circulates through the body). But it has been in the last two centuries that medical practice has made its greatest strides, and Western Medicine provides informative portraits of figures as Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch (the fathers of bacteriology), Wilhelm Roentgen (discoverer of x-rays), and Paul Ehrlich (who pioneered the use of chemicals to destroy disease-causing organisms), and many others.