At the outset of the twentieth century, malaria was Italy's major public health problem. It was the cause of low productivity, poverty, and economic backwardness, while it also stunted literacy, limited political participation, and undermined the arm...

As the slave trade brought Europeans, Africans, and Americans into contact, diseases were traded along with human lives. Manuel Barcia examines the battle waged against disease, where traders fought against loss of profits while enslaved Africans fou...

Plague remains the paradigm against which reactions to many epidemics are often judged. Here, John Henderson examines how a major city fought, suffered, and survived the impact of plague. Going beyond traditional oppositions between rich and poor, th...

Britain had no idea that it would not see another plague after the horrors of 1666, and for a century and a half the fear of epidemic disease gripped and shaped British society. Plague doctors had long asserted that the bodies of the poor were especi...

In eighteenth-century Britain, venereal disease was everywhere and nowhere: while physicians and commentators believed the condition to be widespread, it remained shrouded in secrecy, and was often represented using slang, symbolism, and wordplay. In...

"For a zitty face. Take urine eight days old and heat it over the fire; wash your face with it morning and night". In late medieval England, ordinary people, apothecaries and physicians gathered up practical medical tips for everyday use. While some...

Patients and doctors alike are keenly aware that the medical world is in the midst of great change. We live in an era of continuous healthcare reforms, many of which focus on high volume, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness. This compelling, thoughtfu...

Tuberculosis is one of the world's deadliest infectious diseases, killing nearly two million people every year, now more than at any other time in history. While the developed world has nearly forgotten about TB, it continues to wreak havoc across mu...

The "miracle drug" penicillin was first given intravenously to a patient in Oxford on 12 February 1941, leading to a transformation in the way that bacterial infection is understood and treated. What was to become one of the greatest stories in biome...

A collection of ten essays paired with substantial prefaces, this book chronicles and contextualizes Roger Cooter's contributions to the history of medicine. Through an analysis of his own work, Cooter critically examines the politics of conceptual a...