Making Sense of Illness

Science, Society and Disease
Erscheinungsjahr 2011
ISBN: 978-0-521-55234-9
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 283 Seiten, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 618 g

Reihe: Cambridge Studies in the History of Medicine

This book offers historical essays about how diseases change their meaning. Each of the diseases or etiologic hypotheses in this book has had a controversial and contested history: psychosomatic views of ulcerative colitis, twentieth-century chronic fatigue syndrome, Lyme disease, angina pectoris, risk factors for coronary heart disease, and the type A hypothesis. At the core of these controversies are disagreements among investigators, clinicians, and patients over the best way to deal with what individuals bring to disease. By juxtaposing the history of the different diseases, the author shows how values and interests have determined research programs, public health activities, clinical decisions, and the patient's experience of illness. The approach is novel in its interweaving of historical research and the clinical experiences of the author. It should appeal to an audience of physicians, policy makers, social scientists and the general reader interested in broad intellectual currents in modern medicine.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Aronowitz, Robert A.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Wissenschafts- und Universitätsgeschichte
• Medizin | Veterinärmedizin Medizin | Public Health | Pharmazie | Zahnmedizin Medizin, Gesundheitswesen Geschichte der Medizin
• Medizin | Veterinärmedizin Medizin | Public Health | Pharmazie | Zahnmedizin Klinische und Innere Medizin Innere Medizin

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Introduction; 2. The rise and fall of the psychosomatic hypothesis in ulcerative colitis; 3. From myalgic encephalitis to yuppie flu: a history of chronic fatigue syndrome; 4. Lyme disease: the social construction of a new disease and its social consequences; 5. From the patient's angina pectoris to the cardiologist's coronary heart disease; 6. The social construction of coronary heart disease risk factors; 7. The rise and fall of the type A hypothesis; 8. Conclusion.