Health and Wellness in 19th-Century America
This book provides a comprehensive description of what being sick and receiving "medical care" was like in 19th-century America, allowing modern readers to truly appreciate the scale of the improvements in healthcare theory and practice.

Health and Wellness in 19th-Century America covers a period of dramatic change in the United States by examining our changing understanding of the nature of the disease burden, the increasing size of the nation, and our conceptions of sickness and health. With topics ranging from the unsanitary tenements of New York's Five Points, the field hospitals of the Civil War, and to the laboratories of Johns Hopkins Medical School, author John C. Waller reveals a complex picture of tradition, discovery, innovation, and occasional spectacular success.

This book draws upon an extensive literature to document sickness and wellness in environments like rural homesteads, urban East-coast slums, and the hastily built cities of the West. It provides a fascinating historical examination of a century in which Americans made giant strides in understanding disease yet also clung to traditional methods and ideas, charting how U.S. medical science gradually transformed from being a backwater to a world leader in the field.

"1100273995"
Health and Wellness in 19th-Century America
This book provides a comprehensive description of what being sick and receiving "medical care" was like in 19th-century America, allowing modern readers to truly appreciate the scale of the improvements in healthcare theory and practice.

Health and Wellness in 19th-Century America covers a period of dramatic change in the United States by examining our changing understanding of the nature of the disease burden, the increasing size of the nation, and our conceptions of sickness and health. With topics ranging from the unsanitary tenements of New York's Five Points, the field hospitals of the Civil War, and to the laboratories of Johns Hopkins Medical School, author John C. Waller reveals a complex picture of tradition, discovery, innovation, and occasional spectacular success.

This book draws upon an extensive literature to document sickness and wellness in environments like rural homesteads, urban East-coast slums, and the hastily built cities of the West. It provides a fascinating historical examination of a century in which Americans made giant strides in understanding disease yet also clung to traditional methods and ideas, charting how U.S. medical science gradually transformed from being a backwater to a world leader in the field.

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Health and Wellness in 19th-Century America

Health and Wellness in 19th-Century America

by John C. Waller
Health and Wellness in 19th-Century America

Health and Wellness in 19th-Century America

by John C. Waller

Hardcover

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Overview

This book provides a comprehensive description of what being sick and receiving "medical care" was like in 19th-century America, allowing modern readers to truly appreciate the scale of the improvements in healthcare theory and practice.

Health and Wellness in 19th-Century America covers a period of dramatic change in the United States by examining our changing understanding of the nature of the disease burden, the increasing size of the nation, and our conceptions of sickness and health. With topics ranging from the unsanitary tenements of New York's Five Points, the field hospitals of the Civil War, and to the laboratories of Johns Hopkins Medical School, author John C. Waller reveals a complex picture of tradition, discovery, innovation, and occasional spectacular success.

This book draws upon an extensive literature to document sickness and wellness in environments like rural homesteads, urban East-coast slums, and the hastily built cities of the West. It provides a fascinating historical examination of a century in which Americans made giant strides in understanding disease yet also clung to traditional methods and ideas, charting how U.S. medical science gradually transformed from being a backwater to a world leader in the field.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780313380440
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date: 08/11/2014
Series: Health and Wellness in Daily Life
Pages: 304
Product dimensions: 6.30(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

John C. Waller is associate professor of the history of medicine at Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI.

Table of Contents

Series Foreword
Acknowledgments
1. Factors in Health and Wellness
The Disease Environment
African American Cultures of Health, Disease, and Healing
Native American Cultures of Health, Disease, and Healing
Health, Disease, and Healing in the European Tradition
2. Education and Training: Learned and Nonlearned
Identifying and Training African American Healers
The Selection and Training of Native American Healers
The Selection and Training of European-Style Healers
3. Faith, Religion, and Medicine
Religion in European-Style Medicine
Religion and African American Healing
Religion and Native American Healing
Religion in White, Black, and Native Medicine
4. Women's Health
Reproduction and Childbirth
The Politics of Reproduction
Doctors Writing about Women
5. The Health of Children and Infants
A Dangerous Time to Be Young
Coping with the Loss of a Child
Trying to Save Children's Lives
The Balance Sheet
6. Infectious Disease
The Specter of Infectious Disease
Infectious Disease and the Native Population
Slavery and Infectious Disease
The Culture of "Live and Let Die"
The Slow Beginnings of Sanitary Reform
Sanitary Reform Accelerates
Public Health in the Ascendant
The Recovery Begins
Reckoning Up
7. Occupational Health and Dangerous Trades
Slavery and Death
Sickness and Accidents on Farms
The Exploitation of Irish Men and Women
The Perils of Manufacturing
The Dangers of Mining
Death and Debility on the Railways
The Miseries of Prostitution
Child Labor
Unnecessary Deaths
8. Surgery, Dentistry, and Orthopedics
Pain, Infection, and Death
Rare Breakthroughs
Surgery and Slavery
The Birth of Anesthesia
Surgery and the Civil War
The Rise of Aseptic Surgery
The Transformation of the Hospital
The Flourishing of American Dentistry
The Limits of Surgical Advance
9. The Brain and Mental Disorders
Antebellum Ideas about Insanity
Insanity, Religion, and Morality
Medicine for the Insane
Moral Treatment and the Rise of the Asylum
The Rise of Neurology
New and Old Directions
10. The Pharmacopeia
Drugs in the European Medical Tradition
The Pharmacopeia of African American Medicine
The Pharmacopeia of Native American Medicine
The Three Traditions
11. War and Health
Military Medicine at the Start of the Century
The American–Mexican War and Its Aftermath
The Civil War Years
Sickness and the Spanish–American War of 1898
Military Medicine in Transition
12. Institutional Facilities
The Antebellum Hospital
The American Dispensary
The Transformation of the Hospital
Inventing the Professional Nurse
The Hospital and Medical Education
Institutional Care at the End of the Century
13. Disease, Healing, and the Arts
Depicting Sickness and Death
The Politics of Health
Representations of Doctors and Surgeons
Bibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

Steven M. Stowe

"This volume admirably combines a wide-ranging overview of health in the 19th century with telling detail drawn from the lives of ordinary Americans. There is no better single volume available for learnedness, coverage, and sheer readability."

Suman Seth

"It is no easy task to provide a crisp, synthetic account of 19th-century U.S. medicine and healing. The period saw revolutions in theory, therapy, and practice; the introduction of new sites for the production of medical knowledge and the radical reformulation of older ones; and tectonic shifts in the social groups in- and excluded from a fractious medical marketplace. Waller, however, guides the reader with a steady hand and an unerring eye for both scholarly argument and telling historical details. This is a skillful, smartly written survey, one attentive to the needs of both academic and popular audiences, and sure to be of use in the undergraduate classroom."

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