Cultural Approaches to the History of Medicine : Mediating Medicine in Early Modern and Modern Europe

A pioneering contribution to the cultural history of medicine exploring issues as diverse as dissection of the heart, childbirth, masturbation, animal care, hermaphrodites, orthopaedics, 'miracle' drugs, smallpox and sex advice in different European cultures from the 1600s to the present day. Each case study illustrates various roles of mediation; reconciling conflicting ideas in the medical encounter; as an instrument of domination, or conversely, of resistance. Roy Porter's brilliant foreword conveys the methodological significance as well as the pleasure of these essays. Front Matter....Pages i-xxiii Medicine, Mediation and Meaning....Pages 1-10 De Affectibus Cordis et Palpitatione: Secrets of the Heart in Counter-Reformation Italy....Pages 11-35 Neighbours and Gossip in Early Modern Gynaecology....Pages 36-55 Seventeenth-century English Almanacs: Transmitters of Advice for Sick Animals....Pages 56-70 Consulting by Letter in the Eighteenth Century: Mediating the Patient’s View?....Pages 71-88 Medical Popularization and the Patient in the Eighteenth Century....Pages 89-107 Mediating Medicine through Private Letters: the Eighteenth-century Catalan Medical World....Pages 108-126 ‘Mediating Sexual Difference’: the Medical Understanding of Human Hermaphrodites in Eighteenth-century England....Pages 127-147 Jules Guérin Makes his Market: the Social Economy of Orthopaedic Medicine in Paris, c. 1825–1845....Pages 148-170 Clashing Knowledge-claims in Nineteenth-century English Vaccination....Pages 171-191 Sex and the Doctors: the Medicalization of Sexuality as a Two-way Process in Early to Mid-Twentieth-century Britain....Pages 192-211 Hailing a Miracle Drug: the Interferon....Pages 212-232 Afterword: Cultural Differences in Medicine....Pages 233-237 Back Matter....Pages 238-241 This is a pioneering contribution to the cultural history of medicine offering a careful reconstruction of the complex web of communications and re-configurations involved in the weave of medicine in the past. International scholars explore issues as diverse as heart dissection, childbirth, masturbation, animal care, hermaphroditism, orthopaedics, 'miracle' drugs, smallpox and sex advice in different European cultures from the 1600s to the present day. But they all explore the role of mediation: how information about sickness was shaped and exchanged by various means ranging from hagiographies, almanacs to private letters and newspapers. Mediation could achieve reconcilation in the encounter between a patient and a doctor or healer, but could also be an instrument of authority and domination, or conversely, of resistance and liberation. A brilliant, substantial foreword by Roy Porter and a thoughtful afterword by Matthew Ramsey convey the methodological significance as well as the pleasure of these essays