The Cambridge Illustrated History of Medicine (Cambridge Illustrated Histories)

Against the backdrop of unprecedented concern for the future of health care, The Cambridge Illustrated History of Medicine surveys the rise of medicine in the West from classical times to the present. Covering both the social and scientific history of medicine, this lavishly illustrated volume traces the chronology of key developments and events, while at the same time engaging with the issues, discoveries, and controversies that have beset and characterized medical progress. The authors weave a narrative that connects disease, doctors, primary care, surgery, the rise of hospitals, drug treatment and pharmacology, mental illness and psychiatry. This volume emphasizes the crucial developments of the past 150 years, but also examines classical, medieval, and Islamic and East Asian medicine. Authoritative and accessible, The Cambridge Illustrated History of Medicine is for readers wanting a lively and informative introduction to medical history. Roy Porter is professor of the social history of medicine at the Wellcome Insitute for the History of Science. He has written or edited numerous books about the history of medicine, including Western Medical Tradition (with L. Conrad, Cambridge, 1995), Drugs and Narcotics in History (with M. Teich, Cambridge, 1995), The Greatest Benefit to Mankind (Norton, 1999), and The Creation of the Modern World (Norton, 2000).