Against the backdrop of unprecedented concern for the future of health care, 'The Cambridge History of Medicine' surveys the rise of medicine in the West from classical times to the present. Covering both the social and scientific history of medicine, this volume traces the chronology of key developments and events.

Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize "A panoramic and perfectly magnificent intellectual history of medicine…This is the book that delivers it all." —Sherwin Nuland, author of How We Die Hailed as "a remarkable achievement" (Boston Globe) and as "a triumph: simultaneously entertaining and instructive, witty and thought-provoking…a splendid and thoroughly engrossing book" (Los Angeles Times), Roy Porter's charting of the history of medicine affords us an opportunity as never before to assess its culture and science and its costs and benefits to mankind. Porter explores medicine's evolution against the backdrop of the wider religious, scientific, philosophical, and political beliefs of the culture in which it develops, covering ground from the diseases of the hunter-gatherers to the more recent threats of AIDS and Ebola, from the clearly defined conviction of the Hippocratic oath to the muddy ethical dilemmas of modern-day medicine. Offering up a treasure trove of historical surprises along the way, this book "has instantly become the standard single-volume work in its field" (The Lancet).

For seasoned professionals as well as students, A History of Public Health is visionary and essential reading.

Examining discoveries and disasters, ideas, patients, and diseases in fields from anatomy to pharmacology to surgery, this is a highly accessible overview of medical history as a vibrant component of intellectual and cultural history.

A non-technical, jargon-free presentation of the history of medicine from palaeopathology to recent theories and practices of modern medicine. It gives a wide-ranging overview of Western medicine and an introduction to the rich and varied medical traditions of the Near and Far East.;This text stresses the major themes in the history of medicine - placing the modern experience within the framework of historical issues - and it presents medical history as an important part of intellectual and social history, supplying students with an examination of the field that encourages them to question modern medical assumptions. Areas that are less familiar to students are highlighted, and case histories represent broader issues and trends.