American medicine defies simple characterization. Its history is filled with as much triumph as controversy, which may explain why the delivery of health care in America is described as both the best and the worst of any industrialized country in the world. This book examines the convoluted course of medical practice in America from its roots in rural colonial society to the end of the 20th century. This story is chronicled through narratives of major events, famous individuals, and professional organizations and institutions. Unlike most historical treatises on medicine, the stories in this book evenly explore accomplishment and misadventure. In many ways, mishap and calamity have done more to steer American medicine to its current position than the exploitation of science and technology. The diversity of medical practice from the conflict over smallpox inoculation and the building of the Mayo Clinic to the disgrace of the Tuskegee affair are brough to life in 26 chapters. These narratives also place in perspective the conflicting tenets of American medicine: humanitarianism and commercialism.

Considered the definitive history of the American healthcare system, The Social Transformation of American Medicine examines how the roles of doctors, hospitals, health plans, and government programs have evolved over the last two and a half centuries. How did the financially insecure medical profession of the nineteenth century become a most prosperous one in the twentieth century? Why was national health insurance blocked? And why are corporate institutions taking over our medical care system today? Beginning in 1760 and coming up to the present day, renowned sociologist Paul Starr traces the decline of professional sovereignty in medicine, the political struggles over healthcare, and the rise of a corporate system. Updated with a new preface and an epilogue analyzing developments since the early 1980s, this new edition of The Social Transformation of American Medicine is a must-read for anyone concerned about the future of our fraught healthcare system.

The Failures of American Medicine: Why Americans Have Become Chronically Ill, and What Can Be Done About It describes the failures of both conventional and alternative medicine, while also suggesting which treatments from both medical fields can be trusted

In this extensively researched history of medical schools, William Rothstein, a leading historian of American medicine, traces the formation of the medical school from its origin as a source of medical lectures to its current status as a center of undergraduate and graduate medical education, biomedical research, and specialized patient care. Using a variety of historical and sociological techniques, Rothstein accurately describes methods of medical education from one generation of doctors to the next, illustrating the changing career paths in medicine. At the same time, this study considers medical schools within the context of the state of medical practice, institutions of medical care, and general higher education. The most complete and thorough general history of medical education in the United States ever written, this work focuses both on the historical development of medical schools and their current status.

It was in the 1840s that Americans first began to sue physicians on a wide scale. The unprecedented wave of litigation that began in this decade disrupted professional relations, injured individual reputations, and burdened physicians with legal fees and damage awards. De Ville's account discusses this outbreak of malpractice litigation with the use of anecdotes.

Divided Legacy (Vols. I-IV) is a history of Western medical philosophy from the time of Hippocrates to the twentieth century, treating it as a unified system of thought rather than a series of fortuitous discovers. Dr. Coulter interprets the development of medical ideas as the product of a conflict between two opposed systems of thought, Empiricism and Rationalism. This third volume of Divided Legacy continues the account of the conflict between the Empirical and the Rationalist approaches to therapeutics but introduces a socio-economic dimension which had earlier been lacking. In the early nineteenth century, Samuel Hahnemann’s formulation of the Empirical therapeutic doctrine, which he called homeopathy. It flourished especially in the United States. This volume traces the history of the rise and decline of this formulation of Empirical therapeutics in the nineteenth century United States. It analyzes the interaction between the homeopathic doctrines and those of the orthodox school and attempts to illustrate the influence of socio-economic constraints on the movement of medical thought during this period.

First multi-year cumulation covers six years: 1965-70.