Health and Wellness in the 19th Century

Medicine in the 19th century may strike us as primitive by today's standards, but widespread social change of the era brought about new ideas and practices in health and healing-all described in this engaging book. Exploring the history of medicine in the 19th century around the world, this book showcases the wide range of medical ideas, practices, institutions, and patient experiences, revealing how the exchanges of ideas and therapies between different systems of medicine resulted in patients enjoying a surprising degree of choice. The author offers a unique perspective that provides an introduction to 19th-century medicine on a global stage and places the advancement of medicine within the context of wider historical changes. Chapters examine areas of dramatic change, such as the development of surgery, as well as the fundamental continuities in the use of traditional forms of supernatural healing, covering western, Chinese, unani, ayurvedic, and folk medicine-based understandings of the body and disease. Additionally, the book describes how the culture of medicine reflected and responded to the challenges posed by urbanization, industrialization, and global movement. Comprehensively describes the major systems of medical theory around the world Sets medicine into a wider historical context that shows how all systems responded to urbanization and the global spread of disease Explores the patient's experience of illness and describes the breadth of the available therapeutic options