The History of American Medicine

A Field in Ferment

Datos Bibliográficos

ID11609017
AutoresRonald L Numbers (autor de correspondencia)
Año1982
Volumen10
Número4
Páginas245-245
Fecha de publicación1982-12-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaReviews in American History (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0048-7511 • E-ISSN: 1080-6628
EditorialJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/2701830
PMID11611756
OpenAlexW2326230355
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas6
Referencias citadas20

The term has long meant different things to different people. To medically trained scholars who founded field, medical involved primarily study of what physicians, usually famous ones, did and thought. Although some of these pioneers also explored cultural context of medical history, they jealously guarded their field against pretenders. For example, Erwin H. Ackerknecht, physician-historian, once noted condescendingly that of antebellum medical schools was not really medical because it did not deal with the of proper, that is, of diseases and their treatment. 1 In recent decades, however, as more and more nonphysicians have entered field, its scope has broadened to embrace health as well as sickness, patients as well as practitioners, behavior as well as belief, social relations as well as scientific change. In view of these developments, some historians have suggested substituting history of health care for history of medicine. 2 My own feeling is that either label will do, as long as medicine is taken in its broadest sense to include both preventive and curative activities. The designation has provoked similar dispute. The physician-historian Henry Sigerist, one of first full-time medical historians in United States, defined medical historian as a physician, trained in research methods of history, who takes an active part in life of his time and is in close touch with medical problems of his time.3 Because most historians of American have not been physicians, they have often hesitated to call themselves medical historians, and few of leading contributors to field scarcely think of themselves as such. Even late Richard H. Shryock, one of most respected medical historians of century, did not regard persons like himself, trained only in history, as professional medical historians. That title he reserved for those physicians who have been enabled, by establishment of special chairs and institutes, to give much or all of their time to historical studies. 4

Ancient history · Field (mathematics · Traditional medicine · Historical and modern epidemiology studies · Historical Psychiatry and Medical Practices · History · Mathematics · Medical History and Innovations · Medicine