History of medicine

At the time of European colonisation of Australia, veterinary medicine was a young profession, and there was little money or time for it. Even by 1910, when the University of Sydney enrolled its first veterinary science undergraduates, there were only...

Journey back to a time when doctors tried to jolt your paralysed muscles awake with a strychnine-laced enema. When a physician wrote you a prescription for the mercury-based 'Thunderclapper' pill to relieve your constipation. When surgeons promised to...

• Examines the success of homeopathic psychiatric asylums in the United States from the 1870s until 1920 • Focuses on New York’s Middletown State Homeopathic Hospital for the Insane, which had a treatment regime with thousands of successful outcomes •...

Meet the brilliant mavericks who invented the future of medicine and saved the lives of millions.The Essence of Invention tells the story of medical invention, from the development of anesthesia and safe surgery, through to the advent of vaccines against...

This book uses amputation and prostheses to tell a new story about medicine and embodied knowledge-making in early modern Europe. It draws on the writings of craft surgeons and learned physicians to follow the heated debates that arose from changing...

HIV and AIDS devastated communities across Australia in the 1980s and 1990s. In the midst of this profound health crisis, nurses provided crucial care to those living with and dying from the virus. They negotiated homophobia and complex family dynamics...

The strange and surprising history of the so-called epidemic of bad posture in modern America - from eugenics and posture pageants to today's promoters of 'paleo posture.'In 1995, a scandal erupted when the New York Times revealed that...

This provocative, deeply personal book explores how women experience mental health care differently than men and lays out how the system must change for women to flourish.Why are so many women feeling anxious, stressed out, and depressed, and why are...

The second-century Greek physician Galen - the most famous doctor in antiquity after Hippocrates - is a central figure in Western medicine. A talented doctor, surgeon, writer, philosopher, teacher, pharmacologist, and inventor, Galen attended the court...

A comprehensive guide detailing the story of healing with herbs from pre-history to modern times.Drawing on her decades of experience as an established herbalist and historian, Christina Stapley presents an encyclopaedic and accessible guide to the...

What common condition can be treated with cow dung? How do crushed oystershells ease heartburn? Can eels cure deafness? And how do you stop a stubborn case of the hiccups? If someone was struck down by illness or injury in the late eighteenth century,...

A surprising investigation of a scientific instrument long at the pulse of medicine. This book explores the colourful past, present and future of an instrument that is, quite literally, close to our hearts. The stethoscope has become the symbol of...

In this panoramic and up-to-date account, we learn how the Black Death, smallpox, the Spanish flu and other great epidemics have led to enormous sufferings and mass death, as well as contributing to the fall of empires and changing the course of history...

A magisterial account by Roy Porter of representations of the body in health, disease and deathIn this historical tour de force, now available in B-format paperback, Roy Porter takes a critical look at representations of the body in health, disease and...

This book may offer a cautionary tale in the age of Covid-19. The narratives we shape around disease in society are so often about politics, and the competing versions of leprosy eradication's story are no exception.In one telling, the extra-budgetary...

A sweeping biography of the visionary behind bone marrow transplantation and the story of the diseases cured by Don Thomas's discovery.In the last half of the twentieth century, Thomas himself discovered a cure for every marrow-based disease-like...

A suspenseful, authoritative account of how the battle against a mid-century polio epidemic sparked a revolution in medical care.Americans knew polio as the 'summer plague'. In countries further North, however, the virus arrived later...

From prescribing the "rest cure" to diagnosing hysteria, the medical profession has consistently treated women as weak and pathological. Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English's concise history of the sexual politics of medical practices shows how this...

This is the first publication to investigate the rise of alcohol as a medical problem within a variety of countries and political and cultural contexts.The medicalisation of alcohol use has become a prominent discourse that guides policy makers and...