Synopses & Reviews
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.
Synopsis
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.
Synopsis
Bleeding remained one of the most popular treatments in American hospitals until at least the mid-1800s. When cholera reached North America in 1832, it was widely believed to be a divine punishment, comparable to the belief surrounding leprosy or plague was in the medieval age. Until the late 1800s, the practice of medicine was almost entirely unregulated, resulting in a wide variety of "doctors," rationales, and effectiveness of treatment. Fortunately, healthcare in the United States experienced a revolution in the 20th century.
Synopsis
• Presents a comprehensive overview of American health and healthcare in a century where there was a profound shift in our understanding of—and ability to—overcome the big epidemic killers
• Shows how religious and political views of the time could affect attitudes towards the victims of ill health and the responses of doctors and states
• Provides the historical backdrop needed to explain why American healthcare followed a vastly different trajectory to European and other industrialized countries