Devices And Designs: Medical Technologies In Historical Perspective (science, Technology And Medicine In Modern History)

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. 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 Front Matter....Pages i-xiv Introduction: Devices, Designs and the History of Technology in Medicine....Pages 1-14 Front Matter....Pages 15-15 Bones in Lancashire: Towards Long-term Contextual Analysis of Medical Technology....Pages 17-36 Mechanizing Medicine: Medical Innovations and the Birmingham Voluntary Hospitals in the Nineteenth Century....Pages 37-60 Private Laboratories and Medical Expertise in Boston Circa 1900....Pages 61-73 Innovating Expertise: X-ray and Laboratory Workers in the Canadian Hospital, 1920–1950....Pages 74-94 Front Matter....Pages 95-95 Artificial Eyes and the Artificialization of the Human Face....Pages 97-111 Biotronik: 40 Years of German Entrepreneurship in Medical Technology....Pages 112-136 Building Science-based Medicine at Stanford: Henry Kaplan and the Medical Linear Accelerator, 1948–1975....Pages 137-155 Hexamethonium, Hypertension and Pharmaceutical Innovation: The Transformation of an Experimental Drug in Post-war Britain....Pages 156-174 Greenhouses and Body Suits: The Challenge to Knowledge in Early Hip Replacement Surgery 1960–1982....Pages 175-191 Front Matter....Pages 193-193 From Epidemic to Scandal: the Politicization of Antibiotic Resistance, 1957–1969....Pages 195-211 Cancer Clinical Trials and the Transfer of Medical Knowledge: Metrology, Contestation and Local Practice....Pages 212-230 ‘The Best Bones in the Graveyard’: Risky Technologies and Risks in Knowledge....Pages 231-248 The Politics of Endpoints....Pages 249-272 Back Matter....Pages 273-284 The costs of medicine have been soaring in recent years, partly as a consequence of the introduction of expensive new drugs and devices to patient care. In this volume, leading scholars in the history and sociology of medicine analyze how technical innovation has become so central to health care over the last two centuries and how we are coping with the consequences. From bone setting to hip replacement surgery, from urine analysis to modern, multi-centered cancer trials, from artificial eyes to cardiac pacemakers, Devices and Designs introduces readers to the material cultures of medicine, the settings in which new devices and designs were invented, and the responses of users, patients and policy makers to such innovations and to the risks they pose