Post-mortems may have become a staple of our TV viewing, but the long history of this practice is still little known. This book provides a fresh account of the dissections that took place across early modern Europe on those who had died of a disease or in unclear circumstances. Drawing on different approaches and on sources as varied as notes taken at the dissection table, legal records and learned publications, the chapters explore how autopsies informed the understanding of pathology of all those involved. With a broad geography, including Rome, Amsterdam and Geneva, the book recaptures the lost worlds of physicians, surgeons, patients, families and civic authorities as they used corpses to understand diseases and make sense of suffering. The evidence from post-mortems was not straightforward, but between 1500 and 1750 medical practitioners rose to the challenge, proposing various solutions to the difficulties they encountered and creating a remarkable body of knowledge. The book shows the scope and diversity of this tradition and how laypeople contributed their knowledge and expectations to the wide-ranging exchanges stimulated by the opening of bodies.

A killer disease ... an all-powerful Empress ... an extraordinary encounter ... the astonishing true story. No disease sparked as much dread in the eighteenth century as smallpox. It killed children all across Europe with ruthless efficiency and those lucky enough to survive were disfigured with the tell-tale pitted scars. But a method offered hope in preventing serious infection: inoculation, the practice of inserting smallpox pustules into an open wound. Those inoculated were protected from death. Only one problem remained: convincing people to take the treatment. A pamphleteering war raged in Europe about the risks and benefits of inoculation, and public resistance ran high. Catherine the Great broke the deadlock by requesting that a young Essex doctor, Thomas Dimsdale, inoculate her. Lucy Ward expertly unveils how this extraordinary situation came about - and how it kickstarted a trend of inoculations all over Europe. This is a fascinating history of Enlightenment ideals, political intrigue, and the human quest to cure disease.

An urgent plea for a broader understanding and awareness of the unconsidered dangers of new genetic technologies Since 2010 it has been possible to determine a person's genetic makeup in a matter of days at an accessible cost for many millions of people. Along with this technological breakthrough there has emerged a movement to use this information to help prospective parents "eliminate preventable genetic disease." As the prospect of systematically excluding the appearance of unwanted mutations in our children comes within reach, David B. Goldstein examines the possible consequences from these types of choices. Engaging and accessible, this clarion call for responsible and informed stewardship of the human genome provides an overview of what we do and do not know about human genetics and looks at some of the complex, yet largely unexplored, issues we must be most careful about as we move into an era of increasing numbers of parents exercising direct control over the genomes of their children.

This volume investigates the early modern understanding of twinship through new readings of plays, informed by discussions of twins appearing in such literature as anatomy tracts, midwifery manuals, monstrous birth broadsides, and chapbooks. The book contextualizes such dramatic representations of twinship, investigating contemporary discussions about twins in medical and popular literature and how such dialogues resonate with the twin characters appearing on the early modern stage. Garofalo demonstrates that, in this period, twin births were viewed as biologically aberrant and, because of this classification, authors frequently attempt to explain the phenomenon in ways which call into question the moral and constitutional standing of both the parents and the twins themselves. In line with current critical studies on pregnancy and the female body, discussions of twin births reveal a distrust of the mother and the processes surrounding twin conception; however, a corresponding suspicion of twins also emerges, which monstrous birth pamphlets exemplify. This book analyzes the representation of twins in early modern drama in light of this information, moving from tragedies through to comedies. This progression demonstrates how the dramatic potential inherent in the early modern understanding of twinship is capitalized on by playwrights, as negative ideas about twins can be seen transitioning into tragic and tragicomic depictions of twinship. However, by building toward a positive, comic representation of twins, the work additionally suggests an alternate interpretation of twinship in this period, which appreciates and celebrates twins because of their difference. The volume will be of interest to those studying Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature in relation to the History of Emotions, the Body, and the Medical Humanities.

From its first depictions in ancient medical literature to contemporary depictions in brain imaging, mania has been largely associated with its Greek roots, ""to rage."" Prior to the nineteenth century, ""mania"" was used interchangeably with ""madness."" Although its meanings shifted over time, the word remained layered with the type of madness first-century writers described: rage, fury, frenzy. Even now, the mental illness we know as bipolar disorder describes conditions of extreme irritability, inflated grandiosity, and excessive impulsivity. Spanning several centuries, Manic Minds traces the multiple ways in which the word ""mania"" has been used by popular, medical, and academic writers. It reveals why the rhetorical history of the word is key to appreciating descriptions and meanings of the ""manic"" episode."" Lisa M. Hermsen examines the way medical professionals analyzed the manic condition during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and offers the first in-depth analysis of contemporary manic autobiographies: bipolar figures who have written from within the illness itself.

A public health approach to human trafficking requires a nuanced understanding of its root causes. This textbook applies a historical lens to human trafficking from expert resources for the multidisciplinary public health learner and worker. The book challenges the anti-trafficking paradigm to meaningfully understand historical legacies of present-day root-causes of human trafficking. This textbook focuses on history's utility in public health. It describes history to contextualize and explain present times, and provides public health lessons in trafficking prevention and intervention. Public health recognizes the importance of multiple systems to solve big problems, so the chapters illustrate how current anti-trafficking efforts in markets and public systems connect with historical policies and data in the United States. Topics explored include: Capitalism, Colonialism, and Imperialism: Roots for Present-Day Trafficking Invisibility, Forced Labor, and Domestic Work Addressing Modern Slavery in Global Supply Chains: The Role of Businesses Immigration, Precarity, and Human Trafficking: Histories and Legacies of Asian American Racial Exclusion in the United States Systemic and Structural Roots of Child Sex Trafficking: The Role of Gender, Race, and Sexual Orientation in Disproportionate Victimization The Complexities of Complex Trauma: An Historical and Contemporary Review of Healing in the Aftermath of Commercialized Violence Historical Context Matters: Health Research, Health Care, and Bodies of Color in the United States Understanding linkages between contemporary manifestations of human trafficking with their respective historical roots offers meaningful insights into the roles of public policies, institutions, cultural beliefs, and socioeconomic norms in commercialized violence. The textbook identifies sustainable solutions to prevent human trafficking and improve the health of the Nation. The Historical Roots of Human Trafficking is essential reading for students of public health, health sciences, criminology, and social sciences; public health professionals; academics; anti-trafficking advocates, policy-makers, taskforces, funders, and organizations; legislators; and governmental agencies and administrators.

'Combines a career's worth of expertise with a long history of pain treatment. For anyone concerned with pain treatment, or anyone who has struggled to manage pain of any kind, it's an important read.' GQ Pain is a universal human experience, but we understand very little about the mechanics behind it. We hurt ourselves, we feel pain, we seek help from a professional or learn to avoid certain behaviours that cause pain. But the story of what goes on in our body is far from simple. Even medical practitioners themselves often fail to grasp the complexities between our minds and bodies and how they interact when dealing with pain stimulus. Common conception still equates pain with tissue damage but that is only a very small part of the story - the organ which produces pain is the brain. Case studies show that a woman who has undergone a caesarean reports dramatically less pain than a patient who has had a comparably invasive operation. The soldier who drags themselves to safety after being shot deals with pain in a remarkably different way from someone suffering a similar injury on a street. The truth is that pain is a complex mix of nerve endings, psychological state, social preconceptions and situational awareness. Using case studies and medical history, Dr Lalkhen guides us through all aspects of pain, from chronic to acute, and the current landscape of pain treatments - from medication (including opioids) to electrical nerve stimulation. Whether it's a mild ache or severe discomfort, we all encounter pain in our lives and this important and illuminating book enables us to understand and cope with an experience that for so many can become all-consuming.

Chronologically recounting the story of history's silent assassin, Poison documents the gripping tales of the users and victims of these mysterious substances, from Cleopatra, the Borgias and Qin Shi Huang to contemporary secret service agents and terrorists. Profiles of the most commonly used toxins of each era reveal how the power-hungry, the dangerous and the desperate have harnessed these natural killers to achieve their ends. Poisoning is a dark art as old as human history itself. The Roman emperors used poison liberally to dispose of rivals, guests at Renaissance dinner parties were quietly assassinated with adulterated wine, and professional poisoners equipped murderous wives with toxic tonics for their husbands. In twentieth-century warfare, poisonous substances were used in new and awful ways to terrorize and obliterate both civilians and enemy forces. Today, in the search for the perfect covert weapon, shadowy figures deploy pernicious poisons which are almost impossible to trace. They are only the latest in a long line of experimenters: for the same poisons used to kill or injure others have been used throughout history as intoxicants, aphrodisiacs and even elixirs of life. As every amateur toxicologist knows, the difference between a poison and medicine is often simply the dose.

The blistering non-fiction debut from the author of the critically acclaimed A Girl is a Half-formed Thing *As heard on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour* 'A fearless, interrogative work ... A fierce and fascinating manifesto in McBride's persuasive prose' Sinead Gleeson 'There is something very exciting about contemplating a future for women where our disagreements about how best to live don't translate into weakness and division' Megan Nolan, New Statesman Here, Eimear McBride unpicks the contradictory forces of disgust and objectification that control and shame women. From playground taunts of 'only sluts do it' but 'virgins are frigid', to ladette culture, and the arrival of 'ironic' porn, via Debbie Harry, the Kardashians and the Catholic church - she looks at how this prejudicial messaging has played out in the past, and still surrounds us today. In this subversive essay, McBride asks - are women still damned if we do, damned if we don't? How can we give our daughters (and sons) the unbounded futures we want for them? And, in this moment of global crisis, might our gift for juggling contradiction help us to find a way forward? 'A satisfying feminist polemic' Susie Orbach 'Remarkable' Scotsman 'Eimear McBride is that old fashioned thing, a genius' Guardian

Since the defeat of the Nazi Third Reich and the end of its horrific eugenics policies, battles over the politics of life, sex, and death have continued and evolved. Dagmar Herzog documents how reproductive rights and disability rights, both latecomers to the postwar human rights canon, came to be seen as competing-with unexpected consequences. Bringing together the latest findings in Holocaust studies, the history of religion, and the history of sexuality in postwar-and now also postcommunist-Europe, Unlearning Eugenics shows how central the controversies over sexuality, reproduction, and disability have been to broader processes of secularization and religious renewal. Herzog also restores to the historical record a revelatory array of activists: from Catholic and Protestant theologians who defended abortion rights in the 1960s-70s to historians in the 1980s-90s who uncovered the long-suppressed connections between the mass murder of the disabled and the Holocaust of European Jewry; from feminists involved in the militant ""cripple movement"" of the 1980s to lawyers working for right-wing NGOs in the 2000s; and from a handful of pioneers in the 1940s-60s committed to living in intentional community with individuals with cognitive disability to present-day disability self-advocates.

During the twentieth century, medicine has been radically transformed and powerfully transformative. In 1900, western medicine was important to philanthropy and public health, but it was marginal to the state, the industrial economy and the welfare of most individuals. It is now central to these aspects of life. Our prospects seem increasingly dependent on the progress of bio-medical sciences and genetic technologies which promise to reshape future generations. The editors of Medicine in the Twentieth Century have commissioned over forty authoritative essays, written by historical specialists but intended for general audiences. Some concentrate on the political economy of medicine and health as it changed from period to period and varied between countries, others focus on understandings of the body, and a third set of essays explores transformations in some of the theatres of medicine and the changing experiences of different categories of practitioners and patients.

Under the rule of the descendants of Chinggis Khan (1167-1227), China saw the development of a new culture in which medical practice came to be considered a highly respected occupation for elite men. During this period, further major steps were also taken towards the codification of medical knowledge and promotion of physicians' social status. This book traces the history of the politics, institutions, and culture of medicine of China under Mongol rule, through the eyes of a successful South Chinese official Yuan Jue (1266-1327). As the first comprehensive monograph on history of medicine in China under the Mongols, it argues that this period was a separate moment in Chinese history, when a configuration of power different from that of previous and succeeding periods created its own medical culture. The Politics of Chinese Medicine under Mongol Rule emphasizes the impact of the political and institutional changes caused by the Mongols and their collaborators on the social and cultural history of medicine, which culminated in the medical theory of Zhu Zhenheng (1282-1358), still influential in East Asian medicine. Using a variety of Chinese-language sources including gazetteers, legal texts, biographies, poems, and medical texts, it analyses the roles of the Mongols and West and Central Asians as cultural brokers and also as unifiers of China. Further, it views North and South Chinese elites as agents of historical change rather than as victims of Mongol oppression. Underlining the complexity of the history of China under the Mongols and the significance of time and geography for the study of this history, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of Chinese medical history, Chinese social and cultural history, and medieval global history.

This book looks at the institutionalisation and refashioning of Ayurveda as a robust, literate classical tradition, separate from the assorted, vernacular traditions of healing practices. It focuses on the dominant perspectives and theories of indigenous medicine and the various compulsions which led to the codification and standardisation of Ayurveda in modern India. Critically engaging with authoritative scholarship, the book extrapolates from some of these theories, raising significant questions on the study of alternative knowledge practices. By using the case study of the southern Indian state of Kerala - which is known globally for its Ayurveda, it presents an in-depth analysis of local practices and histories. Drawing from interviews of practitioners, archival documents, vernacular texts and rare magazines on Ayurveda and indigenous medicine, it presents a nuanced understanding of the relationships between diverse practices. It highlights the interactions as well as the tensions within them, and the methods adopted to preserve the uniqueness of practices even while sharing elements of healing, herbs and medicine. It also discusses how regulations and standards set by the state have estranged assorted healing practices, created uncertainties and led to the formation of categories like Ayurveda and nattuvaidyam (indigenous medicine/ayurvedas). Lucid and topical, the book will be useful for researchers and people interested in social medicine, history of medicine, Ayurveda, cultural studies, history, indigenous studies, social anthropology.

First published in 1889, this book provides a guide to vital statistics- the science of numbers applied to the life-history of communities and nations- in relation to medical problems. Chapters cover a wide variety of categories including population, births and deaths, sickness, occupation and mortality, and mortality from special diseases.

An intensive-care doctor reveals the long-term problems caused by ICUs, and how these can be prevented. Thousands of people are admitted to intensive-care units (ICUs) every day, and this is only increasing with the Covid-19 pandemic. Most of these admissions will be sudden, unexpected, and harrowing - an experience that can alter patients and their families in physical, emotional, and spiritual ways, with effects that endure for years. But there is hope. Dr Ely is a leading ICU doctor. His unconventional methods minimise patients being harmed by the cutting-edge technologies that are saving their lives; post-intensive care syndrome (PICS) is a well-established complication that millions of ICU survivors battle, which Dr Ely aims to eradicate. His cutting-edge studies have convinced doctors around the world to change their ICU practices for the better. Through captivating stories, Dr Ely shows how he and colleagues from around the world have re-introduced humanity into the ICU, creating pathways that bring hope and healing to healthcare. This is the future of medicine, and is a must-read for healthcare professionals, patients, and their families.

First published in 1925, this book explores public health and its administration. It looks at both local and central health administration and surveys the various departments including The Board of Education and The Home Office. The book discusses motives, principles, and results of reform in the sector and gives a history of public health services. Other chapters include those on public health as a career, poor law and public health administration, and health insurance.

This wide-ranging yet detailed study describes and assesses the many-faceted cultural achievement of an area remote from Athens, the Dorian islands. Elizabeth Craik's scholarship sets this lively outlying region of the ancient Greek world - which included Rhodes, Kos, Karpathos, Melos, and Thera - in the perspective of Greek civilization as a whole, demonstrating that excessive emphasis on the Athenian advancements of the fifth century BC tends to obscure the contribution of other regions. Beginning with a discussion of the geographical setting, natural resources and historical development of the area, The Dorian Aegean goes on to survey linguistic usage and local scripts, and to examine the regional contribution to literature, medicine and science. In the final three chapters, the religious traditions and practices of the islands are discussed, in terms of myths, cults and administration. This work will appeal to students of the classical world, archaeology, and cultural history.

This book explores previously unexamined overlaps between the poetic imagination and the medical mind. It shows how appreciation of poetry can help us to engage with medicine in more intense ways based on 'de-familiarising' old habits and bringing poetic forms of 'close reading' to the clinic. Bleakley and Neilson carry out an extensive critical examination of the well-established practices of narrative medicine to show that non-narrative, lyrical poetry does different kind of work, previously unexamined, such as place eclipsing time. They articulate a groundbreaking 'lyrical medicine' that promotes aesthetic, ethical and political practices as well as noting the often-concealed metaphor cache of biomedicine. Demonstrating that ambiguity is a key resource in both poetry and medicine, the authors anatomise poetic and medical practices as forms of extended and situated cognition, grounded in close readings of singular contexts. They illustrate structural correspondences between poetic diction and clinical thinking, such as use of sound and metaphor. This provocative examination of the meaningful overlap between poetic and clinical work is an essential read for researchers and practitioners interested in extending the reach of medical and health humanities, narrative medicine, medical education and English literature.

First published in 1927, this book provides a complete study of the beginnings and early development of preventive medicine. It looks at the subject's underlying principles and discusses the prominent writers of the past. Topics cover infection, plague, science and medicine, poverty and preventive medicine and the prevention of cholera, amongst others.

During the twentieth century, film came to be seen as a revolutionary technology that could entertain, document, instruct, and transform a mass audience. In the fields of medicine and public health, doctors, educators, health advocates, and politicians were especially enthusiastic about the potential of the motion picture for communicating about health-related topics, including sexually transmitted diseases, cancer, tuberculosis, smoking, alcoholism, and contraception. Focusing on the period from the 1910s to the 1960s, this book is the first collection to examine the history of the public health education film in Europe and North America. It explores how a variety of commercial, governmental, medical, and public health organizations in Europe and North America turned to movies to educate the public, reform their health behaviors, and manage their anxieties and hopes about health, illness, and medical and public health interventions. Moreover, by looking at categories of movies as well as individual examples, the book tackles questions of the representativeness of individual films and the relationship between the publichealth film and other forms of motion picture. CONTRIBUTORS: Christian Bonah, Tim Boon, David Cantor, Ursula von Keitz, Anja Laukoetter, Elizabeth Lebas, Vincent Lowy, Kirsten Ostherr, Miriam Posner, Alexandre Sumpf Christian Bonah is a professor of the history of health and life sciences at the University of Strasbourg. David Cantor is a historian at the National Institutes of Health and the School of Public Health, University of Maryland, College Park. Anja Laukoetter is a historian at the Center for the History of Emotions at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin.

This wide-ranging yet detailed study describes and assesses the many-faceted cultural achievement of an area remote from Athens, the Dorian islands. Elizabeth Craik's scholarship sets this lively outlying region of the ancient Greek world - which included Rhodes, Kos, Karpathos, Melos, and Thera - in the perspective of Greek civilization as a whole, demonstrating that excessive emphasis on the Athenian advancements of the fifth century BC tends to obscure the contribution of other regions. Beginning with a discussion of the geographical setting, natural resources and historical development of the area, The Dorian Aegean goes on to survey linguistic usage and local scripts, and to examine the regional contribution to literature, medicine and science. In the final three chapters, the religious traditions and practices of the islands are discussed, in terms of myths, cults and administration. This work will appeal to students of the classical world, archaeology, and cultural history.

THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 'Everything you need to know about one of the deadliest outbreaks in human history' Bill Gates 'Easily our fullest, richest, most panoramic history of the subject' New York Times Book Review In 1918, the world faced the deadliest pandemic in human history. What can the story of the so-called Spanish Flu teach us about the fight against present day crises, and how to prepare for future outbreaks? At the height of WWI, history's most lethal influenza virus erupted in an army camp in Kansas, moved east with American troops, then exploded, killing as many as 100 million people worldwide. It killed more people in twenty-four months than AIDS killed in twenty-four years, more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century. But this was not the Middle Ages, and 1918 marked the first collision of science and epidemic disease. Magisterial in its breadth of perspective and depth of research, The Great Influenza is ultimately a tale of triumph amid tragedy, which provides us with a precise and sobering model as we confront the aftermath of Covid-19 and future pandemics looming on the horizon.

The Medicine Cabinet is a beautifully curated and expertly written compendium of over 100 astonishing objects related to the story of medicine. Each object is cared for by London's Science Museum, which houses one of the largest and most significant collections of medical artefacts in the world - including a Bronze Age trepanned skull, healing water from an Ancient Greek well, a seventeenth-century barber's pole, a pharmacist's ceramic leech jar, a gold memento mori ring, First World War blood transfusion apparatus and a prototype MRI scanner. Each object is a profound reminder of the fragility of human existence, but also of the extraordinary lengths gone to by scientists, medical professionals and ordinary people in the attempt to conquer mortality. Published in association with the Science Museum, The Medicine Cabinet is a rich visual exploration of life, death and everything in between.

The tremendous changes in the role and significance of religion during Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation affected all of society. Yet, there have been few attempts to view medicine and the ideas underpinning it within the context of the period and see what changes it underwent. Medicine and the Reformation charts how both popular and official religion affected orthodox medicine as well as more popular healers. Illustrating the central part played by medicine in Lutheran teachings, the Calvinistic rationalization of disease, and the Catholic responses, the contributors offer new perspectives on the relation of religion and medicine in the early modern period. It will be of interest to social historians as well as specialists in the history of medicine.