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Rockefeller Medicine Men: Medicine and Capitalism in America
This book tells the hidden story of the financial, political, and institutional manipulations whereby a diverse and eclectic range of healing modalities available to the North American public was summarily pared down to a singular style of medicine that would become the predominant medicine of
the Western world and a major force in global medical culture during the 20th
century.
This was brought about largely by the collaboration of the American Medical Association, the philanthropies of Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, and the development of a revolutionary curriculum by the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Brown documents the story of how a powerful professional elite gained virtual hegemony in the Western theatre of healing by effectively taking control of the ethos and practice of Western medicine.
E. Richard Brown describes how, in 1905, the American Medical Association’s new Council on Medical Education funded by Carnegie and Rockefeller commenced serious activity. They employed the services of Abraham Flexner who proceeded to visit and “assess” every single medical school in the US and Canada.
Within a short time of this development, medical schools all around the US began to collapse or consolidate. By 1910, 30 schools had merged, and 21 had closed their doors. Of the 166 medical schools operating in 1904, 133 had survived by 1910, and 104 by 1915. Fifteen years later, only 76 schools of medicine existed in the US. And they all followed the same curriculum.
Brown shows how both social and political processes were consciously manipulated by a medical elite acting in concert with immense corporate wealth to create a system of medicine that better served economic and hegemonic intentions than social or humanitarian needs.
the Western world and a major force in global medical culture during the 20th
century.
This was brought about largely by the collaboration of the American Medical Association, the philanthropies of Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, and the development of a revolutionary curriculum by the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Brown documents the story of how a powerful professional elite gained virtual hegemony in the Western theatre of healing by effectively taking control of the ethos and practice of Western medicine.
E. Richard Brown describes how, in 1905, the American Medical Association’s new Council on Medical Education funded by Carnegie and Rockefeller commenced serious activity. They employed the services of Abraham Flexner who proceeded to visit and “assess” every single medical school in the US and Canada.
Within a short time of this development, medical schools all around the US began to collapse or consolidate. By 1910, 30 schools had merged, and 21 had closed their doors. Of the 166 medical schools operating in 1904, 133 had survived by 1910, and 104 by 1915. Fifteen years later, only 76 schools of medicine existed in the US. And they all followed the same curriculum.
Brown shows how both social and political processes were consciously manipulated by a medical elite acting in concert with immense corporate wealth to create a system of medicine that better served economic and hegemonic intentions than social or humanitarian needs.
295 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1979
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
February 14, 2016
An extremely well researched book exploring the history of the business of American medicine and how it was hijacked by the robber barons of the late 19th century and subsequently transformed from a healing art to a business venture. Read this book and you will understand why Americans pay three times more for healthcare than any other industrialized nation while statistics continue to show that we aren't getting what we are overpaying for.
January 18, 2023
This is very thorough, but the discussions are very specialised and unless you know the history/policy specifics, are unlikely to be helpful. Despite its age and context, it is still very relevant. For general readers I recommend reading Chapters 1 & 5.
It is a Marxist reading of the development of medicine today. Key points:
> Our idea of how medicine is done and how doctors work is very recent - only took off in the late 1800s. Before this, medicine was a bunch of competing 'schools' - homeopathic, herbal, scientific, chiropractic, etc... each one with about equal odds of survival.
> Scientific medicine was viewed with skepticism because treatment methods were very hardcore (bloodletting, cuts, surgeries, injections of mercury and arsenic) - this treatment was also expensive, had very few universities to learn (within America - you'd have to spend 2-3 years in Germany/France for legitimacy). Herbal medicine was weak, but accessible rurally (lots of community doctors), non-invasive, and each family learnt a little.
> These schools were all competitors, struggling to form an agreement/gain standing within society.
>At around the same time, there were popular socialist/worker uprisings against the 'robber barons' (early American industrialists in the oil, steel, railways, etc industries) & real fear of the capitalist economy of the time giving way to popular socialist government.
> These industrialists needed a way to channel their money (for fear of it being taken by the government) - they set up philanthropic foundations and made pioneering investments in healthcare & public education. While this may have had incidental benefits to the average person, the motivation on their ends was purely economic - keep the money in their control, create a supply of workers for their economic empires, improve their image, and set the direction of policy.
> The 'scientific' medicine school was perfect for this - it's image aligned with seeing every disease as an engineering/maths problem to solve (i.e finding the right chemical to hit xyz gene).
> This alignment with the corporate class boosted the standing and salaries of scientific medicine (both individual private practitioners and large scale universities), but it also tied them both. Doctors became reliant on this capital for research, for new technology in diagnosis and treatment, and for payment - becoming intermediaries between these large corporations and sick people (instead of healers). They were also encouraged to use this technology liberally to absolve themselves from litigant claims - making the cost of medicine balloon every year.
> Provision of medical care became a means of quieting socialist movements pushing for hard reform.
> When technological care became too expensive - patients were blamed for not taking enough care of their health (exercise, diet, etc) - no serious funding (at the time) went into determining environmental causes of disease.
> Initially these foundations ran the medical system, but after WWII the State stepped in and did this job, the foundations instead became 'thinktanks' for new methods/frameworks to implement in healthcare.
> The state plays the role of a facilitator for these business parties (insurance, technology, academia, capital) - allowing for monopolies to accumulate but keeping them in balance. It is essential.
> There's a real question of whether medical science has really done as much for human wellness as it claims. Most of the health improvements attributed to it in the early 20th century really came around because the infant mortality rate dropped - caused by clean water, sanitation and housing that dramatically cut the infection rate (incidentally, vaccines etc only came around at a time when this was dropping steeply anyway, so it's hard to say).
Follow up work:
Need to do some more research into the Carnegie, Rockefeller, Robert Johnson, Ford, Kellogg, Kessner and Koch foundations.
Medical-industrial complex
Trace the histories of the early industrialists.
It is a Marxist reading of the development of medicine today. Key points:
> Our idea of how medicine is done and how doctors work is very recent - only took off in the late 1800s. Before this, medicine was a bunch of competing 'schools' - homeopathic, herbal, scientific, chiropractic, etc... each one with about equal odds of survival.
> Scientific medicine was viewed with skepticism because treatment methods were very hardcore (bloodletting, cuts, surgeries, injections of mercury and arsenic) - this treatment was also expensive, had very few universities to learn (within America - you'd have to spend 2-3 years in Germany/France for legitimacy). Herbal medicine was weak, but accessible rurally (lots of community doctors), non-invasive, and each family learnt a little.
> These schools were all competitors, struggling to form an agreement/gain standing within society.
>At around the same time, there were popular socialist/worker uprisings against the 'robber barons' (early American industrialists in the oil, steel, railways, etc industries) & real fear of the capitalist economy of the time giving way to popular socialist government.
> These industrialists needed a way to channel their money (for fear of it being taken by the government) - they set up philanthropic foundations and made pioneering investments in healthcare & public education. While this may have had incidental benefits to the average person, the motivation on their ends was purely economic - keep the money in their control, create a supply of workers for their economic empires, improve their image, and set the direction of policy.
> The 'scientific' medicine school was perfect for this - it's image aligned with seeing every disease as an engineering/maths problem to solve (i.e finding the right chemical to hit xyz gene).
> This alignment with the corporate class boosted the standing and salaries of scientific medicine (both individual private practitioners and large scale universities), but it also tied them both. Doctors became reliant on this capital for research, for new technology in diagnosis and treatment, and for payment - becoming intermediaries between these large corporations and sick people (instead of healers). They were also encouraged to use this technology liberally to absolve themselves from litigant claims - making the cost of medicine balloon every year.
> Provision of medical care became a means of quieting socialist movements pushing for hard reform.
> When technological care became too expensive - patients were blamed for not taking enough care of their health (exercise, diet, etc) - no serious funding (at the time) went into determining environmental causes of disease.
> Initially these foundations ran the medical system, but after WWII the State stepped in and did this job, the foundations instead became 'thinktanks' for new methods/frameworks to implement in healthcare.
> The state plays the role of a facilitator for these business parties (insurance, technology, academia, capital) - allowing for monopolies to accumulate but keeping them in balance. It is essential.
> There's a real question of whether medical science has really done as much for human wellness as it claims. Most of the health improvements attributed to it in the early 20th century really came around because the infant mortality rate dropped - caused by clean water, sanitation and housing that dramatically cut the infection rate (incidentally, vaccines etc only came around at a time when this was dropping steeply anyway, so it's hard to say).
Follow up work:
Need to do some more research into the Carnegie, Rockefeller, Robert Johnson, Ford, Kellogg, Kessner and Koch foundations.
Medical-industrial complex
Trace the histories of the early industrialists.
January 23, 2008
Everyone should read this.
August 3, 2016
Awesome book!!! if you want to know what was behind our modern day medicine, then this book is full of historical data on the philantrophic robber/barrons who created our current health systems.
September 25, 2014
An important history that too few are aware of.
February 20, 2026
This book truly opened my eyes.
Before reading Rockefeller Medicine Men, I knew there were problems in our healthcare system. As a nurse, I see them every day. I feel the pressure. I experience the outcomes of the decisions that are being made. I feel the weight of systems that don’t always serve patients or providers the way they should.
But this book helped me understand why.
E. Richard Brown connects the dots in a way that makes so much sense. What feels chaotic or broken today isn’t random. It’s the result of decisions, power structures, and economic forces that were set in motion long ago. After reading this, it’s hard to unsee how interconnected everything really is.
What impacted me most is realizing that we are not separate from these systems. Even though we experience healthcare individually as patients, nurses, doctors, administrators; we are all part of something much bigger. The systems we create shape us, and we in turn keep them going.
The problems Brown exposes are still extremely tangible in hospital spaces today. I witness them with my own eyes. That’s what makes this book feel so relevant and necessary. It isn’t just history; it’s context for the world we are still living in.
To me, this is a necessary read. Not to criticize for the sake of criticism, but to become aware. Awareness is the first step if we truly want to improve our systems instead of unintentionally reinforcing what isn’t working.
I’m giving this five stars because it changed how I see the bigger picture. And once you see it, you can’t go back.
Before reading Rockefeller Medicine Men, I knew there were problems in our healthcare system. As a nurse, I see them every day. I feel the pressure. I experience the outcomes of the decisions that are being made. I feel the weight of systems that don’t always serve patients or providers the way they should.
But this book helped me understand why.
E. Richard Brown connects the dots in a way that makes so much sense. What feels chaotic or broken today isn’t random. It’s the result of decisions, power structures, and economic forces that were set in motion long ago. After reading this, it’s hard to unsee how interconnected everything really is.
What impacted me most is realizing that we are not separate from these systems. Even though we experience healthcare individually as patients, nurses, doctors, administrators; we are all part of something much bigger. The systems we create shape us, and we in turn keep them going.
The problems Brown exposes are still extremely tangible in hospital spaces today. I witness them with my own eyes. That’s what makes this book feel so relevant and necessary. It isn’t just history; it’s context for the world we are still living in.
To me, this is a necessary read. Not to criticize for the sake of criticism, but to become aware. Awareness is the first step if we truly want to improve our systems instead of unintentionally reinforcing what isn’t working.
I’m giving this five stars because it changed how I see the bigger picture. And once you see it, you can’t go back.
January 27, 2024
i read this book for my ibush ia and it was sufficiently intriguing
October 14, 2020
A fantastic historical overview of the history of scientific medicine as I was formed in North America.
Extremely well referenced and through in its explanations.
If you’re looking to determine the foundational history of medical schools, how industrial corporate interests had its hands in moulding the modern medical model, and how current status quo industry in the United States has allowed itself to still be in the point it is today- this is the book.
The epilogue gets into the “personal political opinion” quadrant a bit Brown logically implies the consequences of the current insurance system and delves into its repercussions.
Highly recommend. What an relatively unknown gem.
Extremely well referenced and through in its explanations.
If you’re looking to determine the foundational history of medical schools, how industrial corporate interests had its hands in moulding the modern medical model, and how current status quo industry in the United States has allowed itself to still be in the point it is today- this is the book.
The epilogue gets into the “personal political opinion” quadrant a bit Brown logically implies the consequences of the current insurance system and delves into its repercussions.
Highly recommend. What an relatively unknown gem.
October 31, 2022
Wahałem się między 2, a 3 gwiazdki. Parę ciekawostek, jednak przebrnięcie przez książkę sprawiło mi jednak duża trudność. Jak dla mnie zbyt dużo suchych faktów. Odniosłem wrażenie, że można byłoby to skrócić spokojnie o połowę, bez straty w merytoryce.
December 8, 2018
simply a timeless classic!
July 23, 2025
This book is long thorough and tedious. The author has its own opinion of what "health care" should be even though it appears it understands that the modern "scientific" medical system brought about by capitalists was never designed to benefit "the patients". It appear to Not understand that socialized medicine would be far worse as nobody would even care to keep up the appearance of caring for the patient. The books all sort of time wandering through the lifetimes and perhaps the morals of the individuals. Many of us were looking for a book critical of what Rockefeller did to the medical industry Not because they were/ae capitalists; profit motive is an excellent motive. And if only the patients got to Choose their providers and treatments BASED on their Successes; capitalism would provide the Best system. We instead have a mixture of the worst attributes as the Industry structured itself to make profits by Scarcity tactics; that was of course Rockefeller's Standard Oil Motif. This author is Either a complete idiot or he too was hiding his agenda (for socialized medicine system) the entire time. And BTW it was hidden for anyone who can read between the lines. QED
Want to read
March 11, 2023Reco by Jinan
August 30, 2024
Very interesting look into the history of the practice of medicine, the origin of the university, the two sides of philanthropy, and so much more.
December 18, 2024
Illuminating account of how the US medical system was reshaped into its present form.
August 17, 2025
Everyone should read this.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews