Books in the Health and Wellness in Daily Life series

Examining a 300-year period that encompasses the Scientific Revolution, this engrossing book offers a fresh and clearly organized discussion of the human experience of health, medicine, and health care, from the Age of Discovery to the era of the French Revolution.

Health and Wellness in 19th-Century America covers a period of dramatic change in the United States by examining our changing understanding of the nature of the disease burden, the increasing size of the nation, and our conceptions of sickness and health. With topics ranging from the unsanitary tenements of New York's Five Points, the field hospitals of the Civil War, and to the laboratories of Johns Hopkins Medical School, author John C. Waller reveals a complex picture of tradition, discovery, innovation, and occasional spectacular success. This book draws upon an extensive literature to document sickness and wellness in environments like rural homesteads, urban East-coast slums, and the hastily built cities of the West. It provides a fascinating historical examination of a century in which Americans made giant strides in understanding disease yet also clung to traditional methods and ideas, charting how U.S. medical science gradually transformed from being a backwater to a world leader in the field.

This book provides a broad introduction to medical practices among Anglo-Americans, Native Americans, and African Americans during the colonial period, covering everything from dentistry to childcare practices to witchcraft. It is ideal for college or advanced high school courses in early American history, the history of medicine, or general social history.Health and Wellness in Colonial America covers all aspects of medicine from surgery to the role of religion in healing, giving readers a comprehensive overall picture of medical practices from 1600 to 1800-a topic that speaks volumes about the living conditions during that period. In this book, an introductory chapter describes the ways in which all three cultures in colonial America-European, African, and Native American-thought about medicine. The work covers academic and scientific medicine as well as folk practices, women's role in healing, and the traditions of Native Americans and African Americans.Because of its broad scope, the book will be highly useful to advanced high school students; undergraduate students in various areas of studies, such as early American history, women's history, and history of medicine; and general readers interested in the history of medicine.

Medicine in the 19th century may strike us as primitive by today's standards, but widespread social change of the era brought about new ideas and practices in health and healing-all described in this engaging book.