The Western Medical Tradition: 800 BC to AD 1800

The Western Medical Tradition #1

by Lawrence I. Conrad, Michael Neve, Vivian Nutton

The influence of Greek medical practices dating back to the fifth century B.C. has had an immeasurable impact on the development of medicine in the West over the subsequent centuries. This text is designed to cover the history of Western medicine from Classical Antiquity to 1800. As one guiding thread it takes the system of medical ideas that, in large part, went back to the Greeks of the fifth century B.C., and played a major role in the understanding and treatment of health and disease. The influence of Greek medicine spread from the Aegean basin to the rest of the Mediterranean region, to Europe, and then to European settlements overseas. By the nineteenth century, however, this tradition no longer carried the same force or occupied so central a position within medicine. This book charts the influence of this tradition through twenty centuries, examining it in its social and historical context. It is essential reading as a new synthesis for all students of the history of medicine.

Genres: History, History Of Medicine, Science, Medicine, Research, Medical

572 pages, Paperback

First published August 17, 1995

Reviews

[Shannon Petty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very detailed, if you don't like this book it's because you're uninteresting. However, this was not written for a public audience, or at least it didn't strike me as a book written in the style of popular history. It is incredibly scholarly, so unless you really find the subject matter interesting, you may well find that some chapters go on too long, or too much coverage is given to the detailed descriptions of the processes that led to each discovery. However, I really like that kind of shit, so if you really want to take a much closer look at all the developments in the western medical tradition prior to the 19th century, this is the book you'd want for that. It has the advantage of being relatively modern. The only other history I've read that was as detailed as this one was a three-volume set, and it was quite a bit older.