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The History of Medicine in Context

About the Book Series

For more than 20 years The History of Medicine in Context series, edited by Andrew Cunningham and Ole Peter Grell, provided a unique platform for the publication of research pertaining to the study of medicine from broad social, cultural, political, religious and intellectual perspectives. Offering cutting-edge scholarship on a range of medical subjects that cross chronological, geographical and disciplinary boundaries, the series consistently challenges received views about medical history and shows how medicine has had a much more pronounced effect on western society than is often acknowledged. As medical knowledge progresses, throwing up new challenges and moral dilemmas, The History of Medicine in Context series offers the opportunity to evaluate the shifting role and practice of medicine from the long perspective, not only providing a better understanding of the past, but often an intriguing perspective on the present.

51 Series Titles


Anatomy and Anatomists in Early Modern Spain

Anatomy and Anatomists in Early Modern Spain

1st Edition

By Bjørn Okholm Skaarup
October 14, 2024

Taking the Vesalian anatomical revolution as its point of departure, this volume charts the apparent rise and fall of anatomy studies within universities in sixteenth-century Spain, focussing particularly on primary sources from 1550 to 1600. In doing so, it both clarifies the Spanish contribution ...

Medicine, Trade and Empire Garcia de Orta's Colloquies on the Simples and Drugs of India (1563) in Context

Medicine, Trade and Empire: Garcia de Orta's Colloquies on the Simples and Drugs of India (1563) in Context

1st Edition

By Palmira Fontes da Costa
October 14, 2024

Garcia de Orta’s Colloquies on the Simples and Drugs of India (1563) was one of the first books to take advantage of the close relationship between medicine, trade and empire in the early modern period. The book was printed in Goa, the capital of the Portuguese empire in the East, and the city ...

The British Pharmacopoeia, 1864 to 2014 Medicines, International Standards and the State

The British Pharmacopoeia, 1864 to 2014: Medicines, International Standards and the State

1st Edition

By Anthony C. Cartwright
October 14, 2024

The British Pharmacopoeia has provided official standards for the quality of substances, medicinal products and articles used in medicine since its first publication in 1864. It is used in over 100 countries and remains an essential global reference in pharmaceutical research and development and ...

The Fate of Anatomical Collections

The Fate of Anatomical Collections

1st Edition

By Rina Knoeff, Robert Zwijnenberg
October 14, 2024

Almost every medical faculty possesses anatomical and/or pathological collections: human and animal preparations, wax- and other models, as well as drawings, photographs, documents and archives relating to them. In many institutions these collections are well-preserved, but in others they are ...

Gabrielle Falloppia, 1522/23-1562 The Life and Work of a Renaissance Anatomist

Gabrielle Falloppia, 1522/23-1562: The Life and Work of a Renaissance Anatomist

1st Edition

By Michael Stolberg
May 27, 2024

Renaissance anatomist Gabrielle Falloppia is best known today for his account of the eponymous fallopian tubes but he made numerous other anatomical discoveries as well, was one of the most famous surgeons of his time, and is widely believed to have invented the condom. Drawing on Falloppia's ...

'I Follow Aristotle': How William Harvey Discovered the Circulation of the Blood

'I Follow Aristotle': How William Harvey Discovered the Circulation of the Blood

1st Edition

By Andrew Cunningham
January 29, 2024

This book presents a new interpretation of how and why the discovery of the circulation of the blood in animals was made. It has long been known that the English physician William Harvey (1578–1657) was a follower of Aristotle, but his most strikingly ‘modern’ and original discovery – of the ...

The World of Worm: Physician, Professor, Antiquarian, and Collector, 1588-1654

The World of Worm: Physician, Professor, Antiquarian, and Collector, 1588-1654

1st Edition

By Ole Peter Grell
January 29, 2024

This monograph offers the first comprehensive treatment of the multi-faceted scholarly interests of Ole Worm, professor of medicine at the University of Copenhagen. Scholarship about Worm has focused mainly on Worm’s collecting and the creation of his cabinet of curiosity, the Museum Wormianum, ...

Forty Days Quarantine and the Traveller, c. 1700 – c. 1900

Forty Days: Quarantine and the Traveller, c. 1700 – c. 1900

1st Edition

By John Booker
May 31, 2023

Forty Days: Quarantine and the Traveller, c. 1700 –1900 provides a timely reminder that no traveller in past centuries could return from the East without spending up to 40 days in a lazaretto to ensure that no symptoms of plague were developing. Quarantine was performed in virtual prisons ranging ...

It All Depends on the Dose Poisons and Medicines in European History

It All Depends on the Dose: Poisons and Medicines in European History

1st Edition

Edited By Ole Peter Grell, Andrew Cunningham, Jon Arrizabalaga
August 29, 2022

This is the first volume to take a broad historical sweep of the close relation between medicines and poisons in the Western tradition, and their interconnectedness. They are like two ends of a spectrum, for the same natural material can be medicine or poison, depending on the dose, and poisons can...

Medicine, Natural Philosophy and Religion in Post-Reformation Scandinavia

Medicine, Natural Philosophy and Religion in Post-Reformation Scandinavia

1st Edition

Edited By Ole Grell, Andrew Cunningham
August 29, 2022

The close relationship between religion, medicine and natural philosophy in the post-Reformation period has been documented and explored in a body of research since the 1990s; however, the direct and continued impact of Melanchthonian natural philosophy within the individual Lutheran principalities...

Authority, Gender, and Midwifery in Early Modern Italy Contested Deliveries

Authority, Gender, and Midwifery in Early Modern Italy: Contested Deliveries

1st Edition

By Jennifer F. Kosmin
May 06, 2022

Authority, Gender, and Midwifery in Early Modern Italy: Contested Deliveries explores attempts by church, state, and medical authorities to regulate and professionalize the practice of midwifery in Italy from the late sixteenth to the late eighteenth century. Medical writers in this period devoted...

The Political and Social Dynamics of Poverty, Poor Relief and Health Care in Early-Modern Portugal

The Political and Social Dynamics of Poverty, Poor Relief and Health Care in Early-Modern Portugal

1st Edition

By Laurinda Abreu
September 30, 2021

By the end of the fifteenth century most European counties had witnessed a profound reformation of their poor relief and health care policies. As this book demonstrates, Portugal was among them and actively participated in such reforms. Providing the first English language monograph on this this ...

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