136-039 Medicine and Society

Formerly available as 136-225/325. Students who have completed 136-225/325 Social History of Medicine (or 136-039 Medicine and Society) are not eligible to enrol in this subject.

Usually 75 points of first-year study across any discipline areas.

This subject is a survey of biomedical science from prehistory to the present, with a special emphasis on the past three hundred years. Through an historical survey of scientific discovery and clinical application, the subject explores the experience and understanding of health and disease in different cultural settings, and the transformation in those understandings since the scientific revolution. This is the science of human minds and bodies from the magical to the molecular. How has science changed our experience and management of sickness, reproduction, disability, and madness? What has been the role of science in the medicalisation of society and private life? How has science changed medicine and medicine shaped science? Students who complete this subject should develop the ability to analyse the role of medicine and science in the shaping of private experience and public welfare.

Written work totalling 4000 words.