Patients and Practitioners: Lay Perceptions of Medicine in Pre-industrial Society

Paperback / softback

Main Details

Title Patients and Practitioners: Lay Perceptions of Medicine in Pre-industrial Society
Authors and Contributors      Edited by Roy Porter
SeriesCambridge Studies in the History of Medicine
Physical Properties
Format:Paperback / softback
Pages:364
Dimensions(mm): Height 229,Width 152
ISBN/Barcode 9780521530613
ClassificationsDewey:610.696
Audience
Professional & Vocational
Illustrations Worked examples or Exercises

Publishing Details

Publisher Cambridge University Press
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publication Date 13 February 2003
Publication Country United Kingdom

Description

The essays in this volume provide an unusual historical perspective on the experience of illness: they try to reconstruct what being ill (from a minor ailment to fatal sickness) was like in pre-industrial society from the point of view of the sufferers themselves. The authors examine the meanings that were attached to sickness; popular medical beliefs and practices; the diffusion of popular medical knowledge; and the relations between patients and their doctors (both professional and 'fringe') seen from the patients' point of view. This is an important work, for illness and death dominated life in earlier societies to an enormous degree. Yet almost no studies of this kind have ever been carried out before, practically all previous treatments having been written from the traditional point of view of the doctor, the hospital, or medical science. It will accordingly interest a wide range of readers interested in social history as well as the history of medicine itself.