Edited by David Cantor (Edited Collections) and Jo Melling (Monographs)

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Thomas Schlich, Ulrich Tröhler (eds) The Risks of Medical Innovation: Risk Perception and Assessment in Historical Context, October 2005

The risks involved in introducing new drugs and devices are amongst the most discussed issues of modern medicine. Presenting a new way of thinking about these issues, this volume considers risk and medical innovation from a social historical perspective, and studies specific cases of medical innovation, including X-rays, the pill and Thalidomide, in their respective contexts.

Read together, these papers add to our understanding of the current debate about risk and safety by providing a comparative background to the discussion, as well as a set of generally applicable criteria for analyzing and evaluating the contemporary issues surrounding medical innovation.

Studies in the Social History of Medicine
ISBN: 0-415-334810

Barbara E. Mortimer and Susan McGann (eds), New Directions in Nursing History, 2005

This collection of essays reflects the current interdisciplinary and international nature of nursing scholarship, addressing professional, social and ethical issues through research from eleven countries.

Studies in the Social History of Medicine, Vol. 18.
ISBN: 0-415-304334

Bridie Andrews and Mary P. Sutphen (eds), Medicine and Colonial Identity, 2003

This volume shows how the study of medicine can provide new insights into colonial identity, and the possibility of accommodating multiple perspectives on identity within a single narrative.

Studies in the Social History of Medicine, Vol. 17.
ISBN: 0-415-288800

David Killingray and Howard Phillips (eds), The Spanish Influenza Pandemic of 1918-19: New Perspectives,  2003

‘This volume illustrates that history can, and should be, a key component in the bureaucratic toolboxes of states and international organizations with responsibility for disease control.’
‘… these papers … provide a very useful introduction to a neglected episode of global significance, and raise many more interesting questions than they are currently able to answer.’ - Sally Sheard, Medical History, 48 (2004).

‘It is impossible to do justice to all sixteen of this volume’s essays, which cover a wide geographical range and a large number of themes. The majority of the essays have been written by professional historians, with some contributions from virologists and physicians. The result is a well-balanced volume that will be indispensable to anyone studying the 1918-1919 pandemic, or the history of epidemics more generally.’ - Mark Harrison, Social History of Medicine, 17 (2004).

The chapters in this book have been structured around five main themes to explore the medical and societal ramifications of this pandemic: the virology, medical responses, official responses, the demographic impact, and long-term effects.

Studies in the Social History of Medicine, Vol. 12.
ISBN: 0-415-23445-X

Steve Sturdy (ed.), Medicine, Health and the Public Sphere in Britain, 1600-2000, 2002

‘… there is a common underlying theme to all these pieces to which the contributors, unusually successfully, manage to adhere, or at least acknowledge. This underlying theme, clearly laid out in Sturdy’s authoritative and intellectually wide-ranging introduction, is an engagement with the concept of the “public sphere” as articulated by, in the first instance, Jürgen Habermas.’ - John Stewart, Medical History, 48 (2004).

An international team of scholars uses the techniques of medical history to analyse the changing boundaries and constitution of the public sphere from early modernity to the present day.

Studies in the Social History of Medicine, Vol. 16
ISBN: 0-415-27906-2

Jenny Stanton (ed.), Innovations in Health and Medicine Diffusion and Resistance in the Twentieth Century, 2002

‘The collection provides us with interesting case studies, an index and a well-crafted introduction. It will be useful not only to social historians of medicine but also to those involved in the planning and the running of health systems, who want to understand why some changes meet with more resistance and are ultimately less successful than others.’ - Carsten Timmermann, Medical History, 47 ( 2003).

This volume brings together cutting edge research by historians from Britain, Germany, France, the US, Japan and New Zealand. Innovative in its approach to innovation, it focuses on diffusion and resistance, and organization as well as technology.

Studies in the Social History of Medicine, Vol. 14.
ISBN: 0-415-24385-8

Waltraud Ernst (ed.), Plural Medicine, Tradition and Modernity, 1800-2000, 2002

Research into 'colonial' or 'imperial' medicine has made considerable progress in recent years, whilst the study of what is usually referred to as 'indigenous' or 'folk' medicine in colonized societies has received much less attention. This book redresses the balance by bringing together current critical research into medical pluralism during the last two centuries. It includes a rich selection of historical, anthropological and sociological case-studies that cover many different parts of the globe, ranging from New Zealand to Africa, China, South Asia, Europe and the USA.

Studies in the Social History of Medicine, Vol. 13.
ISBN: 0415231221

Alison Bashford and Claire Hooker (eds), Contagion, 2001

'Contagion' explores cultural responses to infectious diseases and their biomedical management over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It also investigates the use of 'contagion' as a concept in postmodern reconceptualisations of embodied subjectivity.

Studies in the Social History of Medicine, Vol. 15.
ISBN: 0415246717

Roger Davidson and Lesley A. Hall (eds), Sex, Sin and Suffering: Venereal Disease and European Society since 1870, 2001

This volume brings together for the first time a series of studies on the social history of venereal disease in modern Europe and its former colonies. It explores, from a comparative perspective, the responses of legal, medical and political authorities to the ‘Great Scourge'. In particular, how such responses reflected and shaped social attitudes towards sexuality and social relationships of class, gender, generation and race.

Studies in the Social History of Medicine, Vol. 11.
ISBN: 0-415-23444-1

Jim Phillips and David F. Smith (eds), Food, Science, Policy and Regulation in the Twentieth Century: International and Comparative Perspectives, 2000

This highly topical book offers a comprehensive study of the interaction of food, politics and science over the last hundred years. A range of important case studies, from pasteurisation in Britain to the E-coli outbreak offers new material for those interested in science policy and the role of expertise in modern political culture.

Studies in the Social History of Medicine, Vol. 10.
ISBN: 0-415-53532-4

Bill Forsythe and Joseph Melling (eds), Insanity, Institutions and Society, 1800-1914: A Social History of Madness in Comparative Perspective, 1999

'The editors and contributors to Insanity, Institutions and Society deserve our thanks for significantly expanding our understanding of the rise of the asylum in nineteenth-century Britain.' – Gerald N. Grob, Rutgers University.

This comprehensive collection provides a fascinating summary of the debates on the growth of institutional care during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Studies in the Social History of Medicine, Vol. 9.
ISBN: 0-415-18441-X

Waltraud Ernst and Bernard Harris (eds), Race, Science and Medicine, 1700-1960, 1999

'The authors demonstrate a commendable ability to connect historical context, racial ideas, and the development of science and medicine. It is a well-written, well-researched collection examining a number of issues relevant not only to the social history of medicine but also to the history of race and science in Western society.' – Angus Bancroft, Social History of Medicine.

Considering cases from Europe to India, this collection brings together current critical research into the role of racial issues in the production of medical knowledge. Confronting such controversial themes as colonialism and medicine, the distinguished contributors examine the part played by medicine in the construction of racial categories.

Studies in the Social History of Medicine, Vol. 8.
ISBN: 0-415-18152-6

Peregrine Horden and Richard Smith (eds), The Locus of Care: Families, Communities, Institutions, and the Provision of Welfare since Antiquity, 1997

'I liked this book. It attempts to expose the variety of settings in which care has been provided, inside and outside the family, and to challenge orthodoxies on the relative merits of various forms of care.' – Peter Bartlett, Medical History.

The Locus of Care provides an historical perspective on welfare detailing who carers were in the past, where care was provided, and how far the boundaries between family and state or informal and organized institutions have changed over time.

Studies in the Social History of Medicine, Vol. 7.
ISBN: 0-415-11216-8

Ole Peter Grell, Andrew Cunningham and Jon Arrizabalaga (eds), Health care and poor relief in Protestant Europe, 1500-1700, 1997

'This indispensable collection of essays neatly ties together three strands in the historiography of early modern Europe: the burgeoning in the social history of medicine; the recently reinvigorated tradition of investigating the origins, nature, and development of public welfare; and the study of the impact of the Protestant Reformation on the quality of social relations in local communities. Since all three fields have been the focus of (sometimes acrimonious) scholarly debate, it is hardly surprising that their amalgamation should give rise to ground-breaking and, in some senses, profoundly controversial analysis.' - Steve Hindle, Social History of Medicine.

The involvement of society in health care has become controversial in the last decade. Drawing on research by international and leading scholars, this volume investigates the conditions under which early modern Protestant societies in northern Europe first became involved in health care and poor relief.

Studies in the social history of medicine,Vol. 6.
ISBN: 0-415-12130-2

Marijke Gijswijt-Hofstra, Hilary Marland and Hans de Waardt (eds), Illness and healing alternatives in western Europe, 1997

This is the first book to focus closely on the relationship between belief, culture and healing in the past. In essays on France, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, and England, from the sixteenth century to the present day, the authors draw on a broad range of material, from studies of demonologists and reports of asylum doctors, to church archives and oral evidence.

Studies in the Social History of Medicine, Vol. 5.
ISBN: 0-415-13581-8

Hilary Marland and Anne-Marie Rafferty (eds), Midwives, society and childbirth: Debates and controversies in the modern period, 1997

'Readers will find much of interest in these articles, which add needed scholarly dispassion to a subject we should all care passionately about. A welcome volume!' - Judith Leavitt, University of Wisconsin

Midwives, society and childbirth is the first book to examine midwives' lives and work in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries on a national and international scale. Focusing on six countries from Europe, the approach is interdisciplinary with the studies written by a diverse team of social, medical and midwifery historians, sociologists, and those with experience in delivering childbirth services.

Questioning for the fist time many conventional historical assumptions, this book is fundamental to a better understanding of the effect on midwives of the unprecedented progress of science in general and obstetric science in particular from the late nineteenth century.

Studies in the Social History of Medicine, Vol. 4.
ISBN: 0-415-13328-9

Lara Marks and Michael Worboys (eds.), Migrants, minorities and health: historical and contemporary studies, 1997

'...this collection constitutes an important resource for historians and medical sociologists as well as food for thought (and perhaps much to respond to critically) for researchers in the fields of cultural studies and "race and ethnicity".' – Waltraud Ernst and Kate Reed, Social History of Medicine.

Migrants, Minorities and Health explores the relations between medicine and minorities in the twentieth century. The contributors present both historical and contemporary studies of migrant and minority groups from societies around the world in order to examine how health issues have interacted with ideas of ethnicity and race.

Studies in the Social History of Medicine, Vol. 2.
ISBN: 0-415-11213-3

Anne Digby and David Wright (eds), From idiocy to mental deficiency: Historical perspectives on people with learning disabilities, 1996

'What is particularly useful about this volume is that the contributors have not focused exclusively on institutions, which in American historiography had led to distortions because of the neglect of the continued importance of family care. Indeed, what is especially noteworthy is the empirical base of the essays, many of which rest on a reading of local manuscript sources that provide graphic details not only of the ways in which idiocy was defined and differentiated from lunacy but what arrangements were made to ensure that mentally impaired persons had access to care and the basic necessities of life.' – Gerald N. Grob, Social History of Medicine.

This is the first book devoted to the social history of people with learning disabilities in Britain. The nine original research essays collected here cover the social history of learning disability from the Middle Ages through the establishment of the National Health Service. they will not only contribute to a neglected field of social and medical history but will also illuminate and inform current debates.

Studies in the Social History of Medicine, Vol. 3.
ISBN: 0-415-11215-X

David Smith (ed.), Nutrition in Britain: Science, Scientists and Politics in the twentieth century, 1996

'...[this book] is recommended to anyone with an interest in the background to our present ideas on what we should be eating and the role of government controls over food production and marketing.' – Kenneth J. Carpenter, Social History of Medicine.

This volume brings together for the first time a collection of essays, based on original research, which focus on the history of nutrition science in Britain. Providing valuable new insights into the social processes involved in the production and application of scientific knowledge of nutrition, this book will be fascinating reading to historians of science or medicine and anyone with a professional or general interest in food and nutrition.

Studies in the Social History of Medicine, Vol. 1.
ISBN: 0-415-11214-1

Colin Jones and Roy Porter (eds), Reassessing Foucault: Power, medicine and the body, 1994

This study critically examines the implications of Foucault's work for students and researchers in a wide selection of areas in the social and human sciences.

Hardback:   ISBN: 0-415-07542-4
Paperback:  ISBN: 0-415-18341-3

Jonathan Barry and Colin Jones (eds), Medicine and charity before the welfare state, 1994

'a fascinating examination of a complex and important topic with far ranging implications for our own understanding of caring and curing today.' - Lancet.

ISBN: 0-415-11136-6

Margaret Pelling and Richard M. Smith (eds), Life, death and the elderly: Historical Perspectives, 1994

'An invaluable critical survey of historical writing on definitions of old age since ancient times, on the health of the elderly and its treatment, on their family and household relationships, the limited role of institutions, work and retirement.' - Medical History.

ISBN: 0-415-11135-8

Roger Cooter (ed.), In the name of the child: Health and Welfare, 1880-1940, 1992

'a model of scholarship that grounds the insights of cultural studies to specific group, institutional, and professional dynamics...a needed and provocative contribution to the histories both of medicine and child welfare.' - Bulletin of the History of Medicine.

ISBN: 0-415-05743-4

last update 27.11.2006 - webmaster