Routledge Studies in the Social History of Medicine
About the Book Series
The social history of medicine has become recognized as a major field of historical enquiry. Aspects of health, disease, and medical care now attract the attention not only of social historians but also of researchers in a broad spectrum of historical and social science disciplines. The Society for the Social History of Medicine, founded in 1969, is an interdisciplinary body, based in Great Britain but international in membership. It exists to forward a wide-ranging view of the history of medicine, concerned equally with biological aspects of normal life, experience of and attitudes to illness, medical thought and treatment, and systems of medical care. Although frequently bearing on current issues, this interpretation of the subject makes primary reference to historical context and contemporary priorities. The intention is not to promote a sub-specialism but to conduct research according to the standards and intelligibility required of history in general.
Food, Science, Policy and Regulation in the Twentieth Century: International and Comparative Perspectives
1st Edition
Edited
By Jim Phillips, David F. Smith
January 20, 2016
This highly topical book offers a comprehensive study of the interaction of food, politics and science over the last hundred years. A range of important case studies, from pasteurisation in Britain to the E coli outbreak offers new material for those interested in science policy and the role of ...
Britain and the 1918-19 Influenza Pandemic: A Dark Epilogue
1st Edition
By Niall Johnson
June 29, 2015
Between August 1918 and March 1919 a flu pandemic spread across the globe and in just under a year 40 million people had died from the virus worldwide. This is the first book to provide a total history and seriously analyze the British experiences during that time.The book provides the most ...
Health and the Modern Home
1st Edition
Edited
By Mark Jackson
April 23, 2015
Health and the Modern Home explores shifting and contentious debates about the impact of the domestic environment on health in the modern period. Drawing on recent scholarship, contributors expose the socio-political context in which the physical and emotional environment of "the modern home" and "...
From Idiocy to Mental Deficiency: Historical Perspectives on People with Learning Disabilities
1st Edition
Edited
By Anne Digby, David Wright
December 01, 2014
From Idiocy to Mental Deficiency is the first book devoted to the social history of people with learning disabilities in Britain. Approaches to learning disabilities have changed dramatically in recent years. The implementation of 'Care in the Community', the campaign for disabled rights and the ...
Midwives, Society and Childbirth: Debates and Controversies in the Modern Period
1st Edition
Edited
By Hilary Marland, Anne Marie Rafferty
December 01, 2014
Midwives, Society and Childbirth is the first book to examine midwives' lives and work in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries on a national and international scale. Focusing on six countries from Europe, the approach is interdisciplinary with the studies written by a diverse team of social, ...
Nutrition in Britain: Science, Scientists and Politics in the Twentieth Century
1st Edition
Edited
By David Smith
December 01, 2014
This volume brings together for the first time a collection of essays, based on original research, which focus on the history of nutrition science in Britain. Each chapter considers a different episode in the development and application of nutritional knowledge during the twentieth century. The ...
The Locus of Care: Families, Communities, Institutions, and the Provision of Welfare Since Antiquity
1st Edition
Edited
By Peregrine Horden, Richard Smith
December 01, 2014
The care of the needy and the sick is delivered by various groups including immediate family, the wider community, religious organisations and the State funded institutions. The Locus of Care provides an historical perspective on welfare detailing who carers were in the past, where care was ...
Lunatic Hospitals in Georgian England, 1750–1830
1st Edition
By Leonard Smith
April 24, 2014
Lunatic Hospitals in Georgian England, 1750–1830 constitutes the first comprehensive study of the philanthropic asylum system in Georgian England. Using original research and drawing upon a wide range of expertise on the history of mental health this book demonstrates the crucial role of the ...
Contagion
1st Edition
By Alison Bashford, Claire Hooker
April 09, 2014
In the age of HIV, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, the Ebola Virus and BSE, metaphors and experience of contagion are a central concern of government, biomedicine and popular culture.Contagion explores cultural responses of infectious diseases and their biomedical management over the nineteenth and ...
Plural Medicine, Tradition and Modernity, 1800-2000
1st Edition
Edited
By Waltraud Ernst
April 09, 2014
Research into 'colonial' or 'imperial' medicine has made considerable progress in recent years, whilst the study of what is usually referred to as 'indigenous' or 'folk' medicine in colonized societies has received much less attention. This book redresses the balance by bringing together current ...
Race, Science and Medicine, 1700-1960
1st Edition
Edited
By Waltraud Ernst, Bernard Harris
March 07, 2014
Considering cases from Europe to India, this collection brings together current critical research into the role played by racial issues in the production of medical knowledge. Confronting such controversial themes as colonialism and medicine, the origins of racial thinking and health and migration,...
The Politics of Madness: The State, Insanity and Society in England, 1845–1914
1st Edition
By Joseph Melling, Bill Forsythe
February 14, 2014
The discovery and treatment of insanity remains one of the most debated and discussed issues in social history. Focusing on the second half of the nineteenth century, The Politics of Madness provides a new perspective on this important topic, based on research drawn from both local and national ...