Showing titles in History & Commentary

At the turn of the last century, a smallpox epidemic swept the United States. The age-old disease spread swiftly through an increasingly interconnected American landscape: from southern plantations to the immigrant neighborhoods of northern cities to far-flung villages on the edges of the American empire. In Pox, historian Michael Willrich offers a gripping chronicle of how the nation's continent-wide fight against smallpox launched one of the most important civil liberties struggles of the 20th century.

The cultural and medical history of dementia and Alzheimer's disease by a leading psychiatrist and bioethicist who urges us to turn our focus from cure to care.

Witness early, bloody, anaesthetic-free operations and first crude surgical instruments, trace the mapping of the circulatory system, follow the painstaking detective work that led to the decoding of the human genome and understand the role that potions, cures, therapies, herbal medicines and drugs have played in the human quest to tame and conquer disease, injury and death. An engrossing history and tale of drama and discovery that celebrates the milestones of medical history across generations and cultures.

For decades, philanthropy has been viewed as a benevolent force, uplifting communities and advancing education and medicine. But what if charity wasn’t just about generosity? What if it was a strategic tool—one used to shape society, consolidate power, and reinforce the very economic system that created the wealth it distributes? In Wholesale Philanthropy: From Charity to Social Transformation, a section from E. Richard Brown’s Rockefeller Medicine Men, we uncover how corporate elites—led by figures like John D.

The Quaker City and its hospitals were pioneers in the field of mental health. Yet by the end of the nineteenth century, its institutions were crowded and patients lived in shocking conditions. The mentally ill were quartered with the dangerously criminal. By 1906, the city had purchased a vast acreage of farmland incorporated into the city, and the Philadelphia Hospital dubbed its new venture Byberry City Farms. From the start, its history was riddled with corruption and committees, investigations and inquests, appropriations and abuse.

InHumana: An American Healthcare Story tells how an only child was conscripted into a war with a soulless monstrosity that repeatedly tried to throw his widowed mom's life away with the surreptitious aid of unregulated artificial intelligence.

Several years ago, Patrick J. Kennedy shared the story of his personal and family challenges with mental illness and addiction—and the nation’s—in his bestselling memoir, A Common Struggle. Now, he and his Common Struggle coauthor, award-winning healthcare journalist Stephen Fried, have crafted this powerful new book sharing the untold stories of others—a special group who agreed to talk about their illnesses, treatments, and struggles for the first time.

For centuries, doctors have struggled to define mental illness - how do you diagnose it, how do you treat it, how do you even know what it is? In search of an answer, in the 1970s a Stanford psychologist named David Rosenhan and seven other people - sane, normal, well-adjusted members of society - went undercover into asylums around America to test the legitimacy of psychiatry's labels. Rosenhan's watershed study broke open the field of psychiatry, closing down institutions and changing mental health diagnosis forever.

The stomach is notoriously outspoken. It growls, gurgles, and grumbles while other organs remain silent. For centuries humans have puzzled over this rowdy organ, deliberating on the extent of its influence over cognition, mental wellbeing, and emotions, and wondering how the gut became so central to our sense of self. Traveling from ancient Greece to Victorian England, eighteenth-century France to modern America, historian Elsa Richardson leads us on a tour of the gut, exploring all the ways that we have imagined, theorized, and probed the mysteries of the gastroenterological system.

Post-traumatic stress disorder was recognized as a psychiatric disorder in the latter part of the 19th century. In PTSD, Allan V. Horwitz traces the fluctuations in definitions of and responses to traumatic psychic conditions. Arguing that PTSD, perhaps more than any other diagnostic category, is a lens for showing major historical changes in conceptions of mental illness, he surveys the conditions most likely to produce traumas, the results of those traumas, and how to evaluate the claims of trauma victims.

In The Product of Medicine, Caitjan Gainty traces the history of the early twentieth-century medical efficiency movement in the United States, restoring it as a significant driver of medicine’s modernization while also revealing its broader significance as a cultural force shaping modern American life. Covering a range of efficiency’s uses in medicine—from the assembly-line structure of the early Mayo Clinic and Henry Ford Hospital to the landmark Flexner Report and the prosecution of the American Medical Association as a monopoly.

An overview of US physician experiences and the unprecedented rates of physician resignation. With first-hand accounts from physicians, the book covers topics of burnout, moral injury, depression, anxiety, addiction, and physician suicide, summarizing how the healthcare ecosystem was built for failure, while still offering hope and a plan for the future of US healthcare.

Invisible Invaders is a gripping narrative history of humanity’s battle against infectious diseases, from the Plague of Justinian to the global response to COVID-19. With vivid storytelling and deep research, it explores how societies have responded to pandemics with fear, innovation, and resilience. Each chapter highlights a pivotal moment in medical history, showcasing the doctors, patients, and public health pioneers who shaped our understanding of disease. This sweeping, accessible book offers insight into past plagues—and what they can teach us about the threats of tomorrow.

Welcome to a transformative guide designed exclusively for women. This is your empowering resource to navigate heart health with clarity and confidence.

Medications such as Vioxx and procedures such as vertebroplasty for back pain are among the medical "advances" that turned out to be dangerous or useless. In Ending Medical Reversal, Drs. Prasad and Cifu narrate fascinating stories from every corner of medicine to explore why medical reversals occur, how they are harmful, and what can be done to avoid them. They explore the difference between medical innovations that improve care and those that only appear to be promising.

“Not all enemies wear faces. Not all heroes seek fame.” It came without a warning. No horns. No fire. No crashing skies. Just breath… carrying more than air. An invisible presence moved through us—quietly, quickly, and without favour. It didn’t ask for passports. It didn’t care about class. It didn’t knock before entering. And suddenly… everything we thought we knew about safety, community, and survival unravelled. We panicked. We scrambled. We blamed. But slowly… Quietly… We remembered. That cleanliness is not just a habit. It is a shield.

At the height of World War II, five hundred Army flight nurses served with the Army Air Forces as members of thirty-one medical air evacuation squadrons located throughout the world on both the European and Pacific fronts. Their work was not insignificantover one million patients were evacuated by air between January 1943 and May 1945. These specially trained Army nurses took nursing to new heights. Often decorated for their accomplishments, they exemplify the ability of a group of nurses to cope successfully with the challenges of war.

Remembering Anne Beach pulls back the veil on the challenges of research, the problems of gaps in archives, and the long process involved in constructing historical narratives. Through the tragic tale of an ill-fated couple and their disapproving families, this microhistory explores not only forbidden love but also marriage, illness, death, disability, and scandal in eighteenth-century society.

Twenty years ago the most common cause of death for medical humanitarians and other aid workers was traffic accidents; today it is violent attacks. And the death of each doctor, nurse, paramedic, midwife, and vaccinator is multiplied untold times in the vulnerable populations deprived of their care. In a 2005 report, the ICRC found that for every soldier killed in the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, more than 60 civilians died due to loss of immunizations and other basic health services.

In The Invention of the Modern Dog, Michael Worboys, Julie-Marie Strange, and Neil Pemberton explore when, where, why, and how Victorians invented the modern way of ordering and breeding dogs. Though talk of "breed" was common before this period in the context of livestock, the modern idea of a dog breed defined in terms of shape, size, coat, and color arose during the Victorian period in response to a burgeoning competitive dog show culture.