From Library Journal
This comprehensive and visually intriguing chronicle extends from ancient Greece to the present. Prepared under the editorship of Loudon, research fellow at the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine at Oxford University, the book consists of chapters by 20 historians from England, Germany, and the United States. An introductory chapter describes the long historical relationship between medicine and the visual arts. Seven subsequent chapters offer a chronological history of medicine, including a discussion of the influence of Islamic medicine on medieval and Renaissance physicians. The 11 final chapters deal with medicine in its social context, such as histories of childbirth, nursing, and mental illness. A chronology and glossary are appended. The book is lavishly illustrated with photographs and reproductions of paintings and medical illustrations, including 37 colored plates. This volume follows The Cambridge Illustrated History of Medicine (Cambridge Univ., 1996), edited by Roy Porter, who contributed four of its ten chapters, which takes a topical rather than a chronological approach. Although the two volumes are complementary, libraries preferring a more scholarly approach should choose Oxford's Western Medicine.?Kathleen Arsenault, Univ. of South Florida at St. Petersburg Lib.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From The New England Journal of Medicine, July 2, 1998
This beautifully produced book has two purposes. The first is to answer the question posed by the editor, Irvine Loudon, who is both a medical historian and an artist: "What is medical history, and who are medical historians?" Here are 19 diverse essays on the history of medicine, each by a different historian; many of the contributors are from the United Kingdom. The book stands as a showcase of what medical historians are doing in the 1990s, and how they do it. Loudon does not attempt to be encyclopedic. The essays are broad, thoughtful, lively, and written for the general (educated) reader, and they are of uniformly high quality. Seven essays take us from medicine in the classical world to medicine in later centuries in Europe and Islam, and on to medicine at the end of the 20th century. Eleven essays focus on specific topics, such as childbirth, the mind, and the spread of Western medicine. The book succeeds in demonstrating both the richness of medical history as a field in the 1990s and the centrality of health and medicine in the history of Western culture.
The second purpose of the book is skillfully explored in the first essay, by Martin Kemp, a professor of art at Oxford University and a specialist in scientific visual representation. Kemp makes a compelling case for the deeper integration of visual images into the history of medicine, arguing that there is nothing obvious about the images we make and those we have inherited. This book is intended to be an illustrated history in the sense that the reader is expected to learn from the images as much as from the text. The 180 illustrations in the book make a strong case for the importance of visual images in understanding how medicine works; what it is; how it is viewed by patrons, patients, and practitioners; and what part it plays in culture at different times and in different places.
This emphasis gives the reader unexpected pleasures and often a sense of immediacy -- of making the past concrete -- that cannot be provided by text alone. For example, a charming map of the medical school at the University of Montpellier in the 16th century shows how easy it was for medical students to walk to the St. Denis cemetery to find bodies for dissection, making Lisa Rosner's points about instruction in anatomy real and vivid and provoking the reader to wonder which route the students took. Full-color, glossy reproductions of manuscript illustrations accompanying Michael McVaugh's essay on medicine in the Middle Ages give this period a similar immediacy: pictures of an operation for cataract, examination of a wounded patient, and (in a 15th-century manuscript of Avicenna's work) a physician at a walk-in clinic. Picasso's painting on the death of his sister puts the patient squarely between the representative of medicine and that of religion, underlining Anne Digby's study of the patient's view. Jane Lewis's essay on politics and the state includes an advertisement of the benefits of the British national health insurance scheme, introduced in 1911. Anne Summers's fresh look at the history of nursing before and after Florence Nightingale includes stunning photographs: two cheerful, liberated nurses in full uniform pose for the camera smoking cigarettes, presumably during World War I (the images are not always adequately labeled).
This is a book to dip into, savor, and contemplate. Were it not for its high price (presumably reflecting the cost of high-quality reproductions), the book would be a good source for teaching medical humanities or medicine in a cultural context. I came away from my reading thinking how mysterious medicine has always been, and how difficult; how medicine and religion have been woven together consistently, arguably to the present; and how humans behave consistently (dreadfully) in epidemics.
Reviewed by Rosemary A. Stevens, Ph.D.
Copyright © 1998 Massachusetts Medical Society. All rights reserved. The New England Journal of Medicine is a registered trademark of the MMS.
Review
`What should one demand of a good history of medicine? My choices would be accuracy, lucidity, coherence, balance, and enough individuality to mark it out from its competitors. On these criteria, this book scores high ... All the authors have good things to say, and say them well ... the volume fully deserves to be on the shelves of all those interested in the history of medicine ... No longer can readers only of English complain at the lack of suitable general histories, and professionals will find much to ponder and debate.' Vivian Nutton, Medical History
`has some excellent individual chapters.' PW, TLS
`This beautifully-produced book boasts so many stunning illustrations, including 37 colour plates, that it runs the risk of being dismissed as a 'coffee-table' production. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are 20 contributors, all of whom are distinguished medical historians and experts in their respective fields.' Anthony Storr, The Observer
`it is the pictures and their captions that bring the book to life and create lasting impressions of ancient and modern medicine ... a book whose chief purpose is to explain the nature, purpose and impact of visual imagery in medicine' The Times Higher Education Supplement
`this is the most informative, well written and beautifully illustrated text on medical history I have so far come across' Alan E.H. Emery, Neuromuscular Disorders 7 (1997)
`The quality of the illustrations is complemented by some intelligent writing and several essays ... Altogether the book makes for a very accessible introduction to medical history.' James Le Fanu, The Daily Telegraph
`this richly illustrated history of medicine offers information and insight on a wide variety of topics ... Authoritatively and accessibly written by an international team of leading medical historians and including a helpful glossary, a chronology, and a full index, this is a fascinating introduction to medicine in the West from its beginnings to today.' Linacre's, Summer 97
`has some excellent individual chapters' Times Literary Supplement
`exceptionally high quality with many wonderful illustrations ... There has clearly been a tight overall view of what was needed and who was to do it.' British Medical Journal
`This engrossing history of medicine begins with Ancient Greece and carries on to the present day. This is a fascinating insight into a profession which all too often sees its history in the form of practitioners and institutions.' Contemporary Review
Book Description
Covering all periods from Ancient Greece to the present day, this richly illustrated history of medicine offers information and insight on a wide variety of topics. The great milestones of medical history - among them the discovery of the circulation of the blood, vaccination against smallpox, the invention of the X-ray, the development of penicillin - are charted. They are set against the social context of medicine, with accounts of more neglected areas such as patterns of epidemics, the emergence of the medical profession, the history of nursing, unorthodox medical practice, the spread of western medicine beyond Europe and the US, and the patient's viewpoint. Authoritatively and accessibly written by a team of twenty distinguished medical historians and including a helpful glossary, a chronology, and a full index, this is a fascinating introduction to medicine in the west from its beginnings to the present day.
About the Author
A former GP and Research Fellow at the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, University of Oxford, Irvine Loudon's books include Death in Childbirth: An International Study of Maternal Care and Maternal Mortality 1800-1959 (Clarendon Press, 1992).
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