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 medical knowledge and practice from prehistory to the present, with a special emphasis on the past three hundred years. The subject explores the experience and understanding of health and disease in different cultural settings, including Eastern traditions, 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 medicine changed our experience and management of sickness, reproduction, disability, and madness? What have been the outcomes of the medicalisation of society and private life? What is the patient's story? Students who complete this subject should develop the ability to analyse the role of medicine and its practitioners in the shaping of private experience and public welfare.

Written work totalling 4000 words.

A subject reader will be available.

• R Porter, The Greatest Benefit to Mankind. Fontana Press.
• JWaller, The Discovery of the Germ. Icon Books.