136-175 Health, Ecology and History

Credit Points

Semester

Contact

Subject Description

A study of the relationship between science, environment, human society and disease. The course will cover nutrition and the study of human growth and life expectancy from prehistoric times to the present; towns, cities and rise of 'crowd' diseases; industrialisation, poverty and tuberculosis; 'ecological imperialism' and the role of disease in conquest and colonisation; sexuality and syphilis; class and polio; soap, sneezing and the streptococcus; and AIDS in the first and third worlds. It will conclude with a discussion of the modern rise of population and the debates over human intervention in the social ecology of disease: sanitary reform, the rise of medical science and social legislation. This course will be valuable for science students with an interest in environmental and medical issues, pre-medical and medical students and arts students interested in the history of the body, medicine and demography.

Assessment

Two class tests, a tutorial exercise of up to 1000 words, and a final essay of 2000 words. There will be hurdle requirements of 80% attendance at tutorials.

Prescribed Texts

• A W Crosby, Ecological Imperialism: the Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900. Canto, 1993.