Books in the Science, Technology and Medicine in Modern History series

Alternative medicine is a fifty billion dollar per year industry. It reaches a provocative conclusion: alternative therapies' whole-body approach might be just what medicine really needs right now to help crack the tough, chronic conditions seemingly untouched by the revolutions of surgery, antiseptics, antibiotics, vaccines and molecular biology.

Rabies was a constant threat in Victorian Britain and gripped popular imagination, not least because its human form, hydrophobia, produced a vile death with the mind and body out of control. This book explores the changing understanding of rabies amongst veterinarians, animal welfare campaigners, state officials, politicians and the public.

An analysis of a scandal involving a doctor accused of allowing a number of women to develop cervical cancer from carcinoma in situ as part of an experiment he had been conducting since the 1960s into conservative treatment of the disease, to more broadly explore dramatic changes in medical history in the second half of the twentieth century.

This book examines the relationship between medicine and the media in 1960's Britain, when the first wave of heart transplants were as much media as medical events and marked a decisive period in post-war history. Public trust in their doctors was significantly undermined, and medicine was held publicly to account as never before.

In this volume, leading scholars in the history and sociology of medicine focus their attention on the material cultures of health care. They analyze how technology has become so central to medicine over the last two centuries and how we are coping with the consequences.

This book traces the development of British answers to the problem of childhood cancer. The establishment of the NHS and better training for paediatricians, meant children were given access to experimental chemotherapy, sending cure rates soaring. Children with cancer were thrust into the spotlight as individuals' stories of hope hit the headlines.

The introduction of anaesthesia to Victorian Britain marked a defining moment between modern medicine and earlier practices. By examining complex patterns of innovation, reversals, debate and geographical difference, Stephanie Snow shows how anaesthesia became established as a routine part of British medicine.

The volume focuses on the relationship between migration, health and illness in a global context from c.1820 to the present day. It takes a wide range of finely-grained case studies to examine epidemic disease and its containment, chronic illness and mental breakdown and the health management of migrant populations in the modern world.

Eleven essays by historians and sociologists examine cancer research and treatment as everyday practice in post-war Europe and North America. These are not stories of inevitable medical progress and obstacles overcome, but of historical contingencies, cultural differences, hope, and often disappointed expectations.

This book traces the development of British answers to the problem of childhood cancer. The establishment of the NHS and better training for paediatricians, meant children were given access to experimental chemotherapy, sending cure rates soaring. Children with cancer were thrust into the spotlight as individuals' stories of hope hit the headlines.

This book displays the - frequently invisible - role of industry in the construction of fundamental scientific knowledge through the examination of case studies taken from the history of nineteenth and the twentieth century physics, chemistry and biomedical sciences.

This book illuminates how crucial transformations in medical politics and organisation were linked to wider changes in society, economy and ideology.

In 1900 Hungary was a regional power in Europe with imperial pretensions; by 1919 it was crippled by profound territorial, social and national transformations. This book chronicles the development of eugenic thinking in early twentieth-century Hungary, examining how eugenics was an integral part of this dynamic historical transformation.

This book is open access under a CC BY license. The narrative of 20th-century medicine is the conquering of acute infectious diseases and the rise in chronic, degenerative diseases. The history of fungal infections does not fit this picture. This book charts the path of fungal infections from the mid 19th century to the dawn of the 21st century.

The concept of specific receptors for drugs, hormones and transmitters lies at the very heart of biomedicine. This book is the first to consider the idea from its 19th century origins in the work of John Newport Langley and Paul Ehrlich, to its development of during the 20th century and its current impact on drug discovery in the 21st century.

Through an examination that uses previously unavailable archives and little-used primary literature, this book places the twentieth-century mental hygiene movement within the broad sweep of modern British psychiatry, offering its own reinterpretation of important elements of this history.

This collection takes the perspective that the historiography of science, technology, and medicine needs a broader approach toward regulation. The authors explore the distinct social worlds involved in regulation, the forms of evidence and expertise mobilized, and means of intervention chosen to tame drugs in factories, consulting rooms and courts.

In recent years a number of scholars have analyzed the management of BSE, also known as 'mad cow disease'. Thus far, no one has paid attention to the fact that BSE and other transmissible spongiform encephalopathy's (TSEs) are allegedly caused by a novel agent - a prion - distinct from all other known infectious agents such as bacteria and viruses.

The Politics of Addiction examines power and policy-making in the context of a bitter conflict between private and publicly employed doctors treating addiction. Regulation was used by both the profession and the state to shape the treatment of addiction and who could provide it, with the media feeding into the process.

The volume focuses on the relationship between migration, health and illness in a global context from c.1820 to the present day. It takes a wide range of finely-grained case studies to examine epidemic disease and its containment, chronic illness and mental breakdown and the health management of migrant populations in the modern world.

A unique exploration of the changing ideas about the place of voluntarism and health care within society in Britain since the 1960s. By considering the work of voluntary organisations with illegal drug users, the authors provide a lens through which wider developments in the relationship between the state and civil society are examined.

Following the testing of therapeutic sera, the quantified evaluation of a pharmaceutical's efficacy became a key feature of medicine in the twentieth century. The case studies in this volume offer comparisons across Europe, from the diphtheria antitoxin in the late 1800s to the introduction of the Salk polio vaccine in the 1950s.

The Total Hip Replacement was invented by British surgeons after World War Two. It became the basis of a multi-billion global industry in joint replacement. This pioneering study ranges from inventive surgeons to multi-national manufacturers and explores total hip replacement in the very different health economies of the UK and the US.

This book examines the relationship between medicine and the media in 1960's Britain, when the first wave of heart transplants were as much media as medical events and marked a decisive period in post-war history. Public trust in their doctors was significantly undermined, and medicine was held publicly to account as never before.

In this volume, leading scholars in the history and sociology of medicine focus their attention on the material cultures of health care. They analyze how technology has become so central to medicine over the last two centuries and how we are coping with the consequences.

The introduction of anaesthesia to Victorian Britain marked a defining moment between modern medicine and earlier practices. By examining complex patterns of innovation, reversals, debate and geographical difference, Stephanie Snow shows how anaesthesia became established as a routine part of British medicine.

Eleven essays by historians and sociologists examine cancer research and treatment as everyday practice in post-war Europe and North America. These are not stories of inevitable medical progress and obstacles overcome, but of historical contingencies, cultural differences, hope, and often disappointed expectations.

The first comprehensive history of lung cancer from around 1800 to the present day; a story of doctors and patients, hopes and fears, expectations and frustrations. Where most histories of medicine focus on progress, Timmermann asks what happens when medical progress does not seem to make much difference.

The first comprehensive history of lung cancer from around 1800 to the present day; a story of doctors and patients, hopes and fears, expectations and frustrations. Where most histories of medicine focus on progress, Timmermann asks what happens when medical progress does not seem to make much difference.

This collection takes the perspective that the historiography of science, technology, and medicine needs a broader approach toward regulation. The authors explore the distinct social worlds involved in regulation, the forms of evidence and expertise mobilized, and means of intervention chosen to tame drugs in factories, consulting rooms and courts.