History of Medicine from Antiquity-1700

This course introduces the student to the history of medicine in Europe from Greco-Egyptian antiquity to the association of post-mortem pathology with disease and the clinical movement of early 19th century Paris. Beginning with the earliest professionalization of healing, we will follow developments in the perception of health and disease, the elaboration of medical theory, the rise of university medicine and the professionalization of the M.D., social responses to disease and unusual mortalities, and the beginnings of public attempts to deal with the sick and contain epidemics. Students will study not only what medical historians believe actually happened in the past, but also how contemporaries understood health and disease.