This course aims to provide a survey of healing theory and practice from the Old Stone Age to the present, with emphasis on the development of Western therapeutic traditions. This survey does not pretend to be comprehensive, so vast is the scope of our subject. I hope that some of the topics we will discuss will spur you to learning more about them; to this end I have provided a list of suggested further readings, and a list of useful internet resources. Let me know what your interests are, and perhaps I can help direct your search.

- Leonard George

Week One - Between Worm and World:

Setting the Stage for a History of Healing

Week Two - Shamans and Sarcophagi:

The Stone Ages and the First Civilizations

Week Three - Snakes and Scalpels:

Greece and Rome

Week Four - Diseases and Devils:

Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages

Week Five - Plagues and Planets:

The Renaissance

Week Six - Microbes and Magnets:

The Enlightenment

Week Seven - Surgeons and Shamans:

The Modern Era

"The frontiers between orthodox and unorthodox medicine have always been flexible… So mobile have been their boundaries, that one age’s quackery has often become another’s orthodoxy."

(Medical Fringe and Medical Orthodoxy, 1750-1850)

FURTHER READINGS:

Amundsen, D. (1996). Medicine, society, and faith in the ancient

and medieval worlds. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Bender, G. (1966). Great moments in medicine. Detroit: Northwood

Institute Press.

Biedermann, H. (1978). Medicina magica: Metaphysical healing

methods in late-antique and medieval manuscripts. Birmingham,

AB: Classics of Medicine Library.

Bynum, W., & Porter, R. (1987). Medical fringe and medical

orthodoxy, 1750-1850. London: Croom Helm.

Clarke, J. (2000). Health, illness, and medicine in Canada. Don

Mills, ONT: Oxford University Press Canada.

Conrad, L., Neve, M., Nutton, V., Porter, R., & Wear, A. (1995). The

western medical tradition: 800 BC to AD 1800. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

Cooter, R. (Ed.) (1988). Studies on alternative medicine. London:

Macmillan.

Cooter, R., & Pickstone, J. (Eds.)(2000). Medicine in the twentieth

century. Amsterdam: OPA.

Crabtree, A. (1993). From Mesmer to Freud: Magnetic sleep and the

roots of psychological healing. New Haven, CT: Yale University

Press.

Dossey, B. (2000). Florence Nightingale: Mystic, visionary, healer.

Springhouse, PA: Springhouse Corporation.

Foucault, M. (1965). Madness and civilization: A history of

insanity in the age of reason. New York: Random House.

Foucault, M. (1973). The birth of the clinic: An archaeology of

medical perception. New York: Pantheon Books.

French, R., & Wear, A. (Eds.) (1989). The medical revolution of the

seventeenth century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Furst, L. (Ed.) (1997). Women healers and physicians: Climbing a

long hill. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky.

Gilman, S. (1988). Disease and representation: Images of illness

from madness to AIDS. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Gordon, R. (1993). The alarming history of medicine: Amusing

anecdotes from Hippocrates to heart transplants. New York: St.

Martin’s Press.

Grmek, M. (1998). Western medical thought from antiquity to the

Middle Ages. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Grossinger, R. (1995). Planet medicine: Origins. Berkeley,CA:

North Atlantic Books.

Kaptchuk, T., & Croucher, M. (1986). The healing arts: A journey

through the faces of medicine. London: BBC.

Kaufman, M. (1971). Homeopathy in America: The rise and fall of a

medical heresy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Kiple, K. (Ed.) (1997). Plague, pox & pestilence. London: Weidenfeld

& Nicolson.

Le Fanu, J. (2000). The rise and fall of modern medicine. London:

Little, Brown & Co.

Lindemann, M. (1999). Medicine and society in early modern

Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Loudon, I. (Ed.) (1997). Western medicine: An illustrated history.

Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Luchetti, C. (1998). Medicine women: The story of early-American

women doctors. New York: Crown Publishers.

Lyons, A., & Petrucelli, R. (1987). Medicine: An illustrated history.

New York: Abradale Press.

Majno, G. (1975). The healing hand: Man and wound in the ancient

world. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Mann, J. (1992). Murder, magic, and medicine. Oxford: Oxford

University Press.

Margotta, R. (1968). An illustrated history of medicine. Feltham,

UK: Paul Hamlyn.

Micale, M. (1995). Approaching hysteria: Disease and its

interpretations. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Payer, L. (1996). Medicine and culture: Varieties of treatment in the

United States, England, West Germany, and France. New York:

Henry Holt.

Podmore, F. (1963). From Mesmer to Christian Science: A short

history of mental healing. New York: University Books.

Porter, R. (Ed.) (1996). The Cambridge illustrated history of

medicine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Porter, R. (1999). The timechart history of medicine.

Rickmansworth, UK: Worth Press.

Potter, P. (1988). A short handbook of Hippocratic medicine.

Quebec: Sphinx.

Rey, R. (1995). The history of pain. Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press.

Scull, A., MacKenzie, C., & Hervey, N. (1992). Masters of Bedlam:

The transformation of the mad-doctoring trade. Princeton:

Princeton University Press.

Sennett, R. (1996). Flesh and stone: The body and the city in

western civilization. London: Faber.

Shorter, E. (1992). From paralysis to fatigue: A history of

psychosomatic illness in the modern era. New York: Free Press.

Singer, C. (1957). A short history of anatomy and physiology from

the Greeks to Harvey. New York: Dover.

Siraisi, N. (1990). Medieval and early Renaissance medicine: An

introduction to knowledge and practice. Chicago: University of

Chicago Press.

Starr, P. (1982). The social transformation of American medicine.

New York: Basic Books.

Talbot, C.H. (1967). Medicine in medieval England. London:

Oldbourne.

Thorwald, J. (1963). Science and secrets of early medicine: Egypt /

Mesopotamia / India / China / Mexico / Peru. New York:

Harcourt, Brace, & World.

Young, A. (1995). The harmony of illusions: Inventing

post-traumatic stress disorder. Princeton: Princeton University

Press.

Young, J. (1992). The medical messiahs: A social history of health

quackery in twentieth-century America. Princeton: Princeton

University Press.

Zilboorg, G. (1941). A history of medical psychology. New York:

W.W. Norton & Co.

"The philosophies of one age have become the absurdities of the next, and the foolishness of yesterday has become the wisdom of tomorrow; through long ages which were slowly learning what we are hurrying to forget, amid all the changes and chances of twenty-five centuries, the profession has never lacked men who have lived up to the Greek ideals."

INTERNET RESOURCES:

American Association for the History of Medicine

Bulletin of the History of Medicine

Canadian Medical Hall of Fame

Canadian Museum of Health and Medicine

Hannah Institute for the History of Medicine

History of Health and Medicine Unit, McMaster University

History of Medicine Collection

History of Medicine Links

History of Science, Technology and Medicine Museums

HSLS History of Medicine

Images from the History of Medicine

Medical History on the Internet

Museum of Menstruation

Selected Special Collections and Archives in the History of Medicine

Selected WWW Sites Relating to the History of Medicine

Social Studies of Medicine, McGill University

Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine

Yale Medical Library: Special Collections in the History of Medicine

"The gods are the real doctors, though people do not think so."