Editorial Reviews
Book
Description
Medicine and Society in Early Modern Europe,
offers undergraduate students a concise introduction to a
subject rich in historical excitement and interest. Mary
Lindemann, a distinguished scholar of the history of medicine,
writes with exceptional clarity and examines medicine from a
social and cultural perspective rather than a narrowly
scientific one. She focuses on the experience of illness and on
patients and folk healers as much as on the rise of medical
science, doctors and hospitals.
Customer Reviews
An integrated view of medicine in its historical context,
August 21, 2001
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Reviewer:
dutch-traveller from Amsterdam Netherlands
|
In this book Mary Lindemann describes the practice of
medicine in early modern Europe (1500-1800) in its historical
context, giving intriguing insights. She emphasizes that until
recently this period was seen by medical history scientists as a
dark period, in which no medical cure whatsoever was available.
Also the advent of medicine was often described as a success
story of ingenious, white-coated, university-educated doctors.
In this book, part of the series New Approaches to European
History, she takes a look at the practice in this period through
the eyes of a modern historian. She puts the developments into a
wider perspective including other developments in the society.
This leads to some revealing insights.
It may be true that there were not a lot of
university-educated doctors around, especially in the
countryside, but the place was literally swarming with other
health providers, such as surgeons, barber-surgeons,
apothecaries, midwives and many more people who after were quite
well educated through a system of guilds. Also, there were quite
a lot of public and private initiatives to prevent or counteract
outbreaks, give support to the poor and needy and to regulate
health and medical practice-related matters.
What remains is the impression that medicine in early modern
Europe was less primitive than we often think (some supposedly
very modern concepts such as an essential drugs list for
apothecaries were already in place in the 17th century), even
though there was often no cure available, and that the medical
practice was on the one hand solidly anchored in a historical
tradition and on the other hand developing rapidly. |
