Taking as its point of departure recent developments in health and social theory Health, Medicine and Society brings together a range of eminent, international scholars to reflect upon key issues at the turn of the century. Contributors draw upon a range of contemporary theories, both modernist and postmodernist, to look at the following themes: *health and social structure *the contested nature of the body *the salience of consumption and risk *the challenge of emotions Health, Medicine and Society provides a 'state-of-the-art' assessment of health related issues at the millennium and a cogent set of arguments for the centrality of health to contemporary social theory. Written in a clear, accessible style it will be ideal reading for students and researchers in health studies, public health, medical sociology, medicine and nursing.

Readings in Health, Medicine, and Society offers students carefully selected readings that provide them with a broad and well-rooted knowledge base in global and U.S. medical sociology. Unit I provides students with an overview of the field and examines select concepts and theoretical perspectives. Unit II illustrates the ways in which culture impacts health and health care systems. Unit III examines inequalities at the individual and societal levels. In Unit IV, students investigate how political and corporate structures impact people's health choices and behaviors. Unit V describes the key variables involved in the socialization of Western doctors, reviews the ways folk medicines differ from the Western paradigm, and illustrates an example of healing practices outside Western medicine. Unit VI provides a review of emerging medical technologies as they relate to sociology and offers a critical analysis of pharmaceutical technology. Unit VII critically examines the history of power building by U.S. doctors. The final unit offers a brief overview of the history of bioethics through a discussion of the Nuremburg Code, followed by an examination of patient autonomy and informed consent. Featuring a unique sociological perspective, Readings in Health, Medicine, and Society is an ideal resource for courses in medical sociology and public health.

Sharp, bold and engaging, this book provides a contemporary account of why medical sociology matters in our modern society. Combining theoretical and empirical perspectives, and applying the pragmatic demands of policy, this timely book explores society′s response to key issues such as race, gender and identity to explain the relationship between sociology, medicine and medical sociology. Each chapter includes an authoritative introduction to pertinent areas of debate, a clear summary of key issues and themes and dedicated bibliography. Chapters include: • social theory and medical sociology • health inequalities • bodies, pain and suffering • personal, local and global. Brimming with fresh interpretations and critical insights this book will contribute to illuminating the practical realities of medical sociology. This exciting text will be of interest to students of sociology of health and illness, medical sociology, and sociology of the body. Hannah Bradby has a visiting fellowship at the Department of Primary Care and Health Sciences, King′s College London. She is monograph series editor for the journal Sociology of Health and Illness and co-edits the multi-disciplinary journal Ethnicity and Health.

This work offers a social and cultural history of Victorian medicine "from below," as experienced by ordinary practitioners and patients, often described in their own words. Health, Medicine, and Society in Victorian England is a human story of medicine in 19th-century England. It's a story of how a diverse and competitive assortment of apothecary apprentices, surgeons who learned their trade by doing, and physicians schooled in ancient Greek medicine but lacking in any actual experience with patients, was gradually formed into a medical profession with uniform standards of education and qualification. It's a story of how medical men struggled with "new" diseases such as cholera and "old" ones known for centuries, such as tuberculosis, syphilis, and smallpox, largely in the absence of effective drugs or treatments, and so were often reduced to standing helplessly by as their patients died. It's a story of how surgeons, empowered first by anesthesia and later by antiseptic technique, vastly expanded the field of surgery—sometimes with major benefits for patients, but sometimes with disastrous results. Above all, it's a story of how gender and class ideology dominated both practitioners and patients. Women were stridently excluded from medical education and practice of any kind until the end of the century, but were hailed into the new field of nursing, which was felt to be "natural" to the gentler sex. Only the poor were admitted to hospitals until the last decades of the century, and while they often received compassionate care, they were also treated as "cases" of disease and experimented upon with freedom. Yet because medical knowledge was growing by leaps and bounds, Victorians were fascinated with this new field and wrote novels, poetry, essays, letters, and diaries, which illuminate their experience of health and disease for us. Newly developed techniques of photography, as well as improved print illustrations, help us to picture this fascinating world. This vivid history of Victorian medicine is enriched with many literary examples and visual images drawn from the period.

There is more to a person than a particular symptom or disease: patients are individuals but they are not isolated, they are part of a family, a community, an environment, and all these factors can affect in many different ways how they manage health and illness. This book provides an introduction to population, sociological and psychological influences on health and delivery of healthcare in the UK and will equip today’s medical students with the knowledge required to be properly prepared for clinical practice in accordance with the outcomes of Tomorrow’s Doctors.

Taking as its point of departure recent developments in health and social theory Health, Medicine and Society brings together a range of eminent, international scholars to reflect upon key issues at the turn of the century. Contributors draw upon a range of contemporary theories, both modernist and postmodernist, to look at the following themes: *health and social structure *the contested nature of the body *the salience of consumption and risk *the challenge of emotions Health, Medicine and Society provides a 'state-of-the-art' assessment of health related issues at the millennium and a cogent set of arguments for the centrality of health to contemporary social theory. Written in a clear, accessible style it will be ideal reading for students and researchers in health studies, public health, medical sociology, medicine and nursing.

First published in 1960, Richard Harrison Shryock's Medicine and Society in America: 1660-1860 remains a sweeping and informative introduction to the practice of medicine, the education of physicians, the understanding of health and disease, and the professionalization of medicine in the Colonial Era and the period of the Early Republic. Shryock details such developments as the founding of the first medical school in America (at the College of Philadelphia in 1765); the introduction of inoculation against smallpox in Boston in 1721; the creation of the Marine Hospital Service in 1799, under which all merchant marines were required to take out health insurance; and the state of medical knowledge on the eve of the Civil War.