Medicine and Society in Early Modern Europe

A concise and accessible introduction to health and healing in Europe from 1500 to 1800.

Mary Lindemann (Author)

9780521732567, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 1 July 2010

314 pages, 17 b/w illus. 7 tables
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.51 kg

"...valuable resource and should be on the reading lists of relevant courses." -Sara Read, Canadian Bulletin of Medical History

Medicine and Society in Early Modern Europe offers students a concise introduction to health and healing in Europe from 1500 to 1800. Bringing together the best recent research in the field, Mary Lindemann examines medicine from a social and cultural perspective, rather than a narrowly scientific one. Drawing on medical anthropology, sociology, and ethics as well as cultural and social history, she focuses on the experience of illness and on patients and folk healers as much as on the rise of medical science, doctors, and hospitals. This second edition has been updated and revised throughout in content, style, and interpretations, and new material has been added, in particular, on colonialism, exploration, and women. Accessibly written and full of fascinating insights, this will be essential reading for all students of the history of medicine and will provide invaluable context for students of early modern Europe more generally.

Introduction
1. Sickness and health
2. Plagues and peoples
3. Learned medicine
4. Learning to heal
5. Hospitals and asylums
6. Health and society
7. Healing
Conclusion
Further reading.

Subject Areas: History of medicine [MBX], Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], British & Irish history [HBJD1]