Under the influence of the epidemic, the details of medicine, the history of medicine, and the purpose of medicine have attracted more and more attention. Is medicine only related to science and technology? Who controls and dominates the development of medicine? Is medicine determined by supply and demand, or is it shaped by market forces? After hundreds of years of rapid progress in medicine, are there also problems and dilemmas? Recently, Yilin Publishing House launched the "Cambridge Medical History", a blockbuster work in the history of medicine, which not only depicts the development process of human medicine for thousands of years, but also sharply understands the dilemmas and crises facing modern medicine.
The Cambridge History of Medicine was compiled by a group of authoritative scholars of medical history led by Roy Porter. Roy Porter is a famous British historian, a member of the British National Academy of Sciences, a pioneer in the history of medical society and medical culture, and is known as "the greatest medical historian of that generation". He has taught at the University of Cambridge, UCLA, Princeton University, and Stanford University. From 1993 he was Professor of Social History of Medicine at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine at University College London until his retirement.
In addition to the history of medicine, Roy Porter was also accomplished in European history, the Enlightenment, geology, and more than 100 books during his lifetime. His vast disciplines led him beyond the traditional study of medical history and opened up new historical directions. With a new perspective and approach, Roy Porter convened a group of authoritative scholars in the field of medical history, including academicians of the British Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of Canada, to co-write the Cambridge History of Medicine. As soon as it came out, it became a textbook classic.
From the Renaissance to the 20th century, medical science and technology achieved brilliant achievements, and correspondingly, the compilation of the history of medicine is often equivalent to recording the footprints of successful people. For a long time, biographies of great doctors, advances in medical knowledge, and breakthroughs in disease diagnosis and treatment techniques became the basic format for writing the history of medicine. Medical historians, represented by Roy Potter, have questioned this tradition of compilation, arguing that this makes the study of the history of medicine an overly simplistic and comical chronology of medical achievements and developments, ignoring the status and influence of medicine in society, and also ignoring the interrelationship between the development of medical technology and the change of people's medical concepts.
The Cambridge History of Medicine boldly breaks through and breaks with tradition. It abandons the usual chronological narrative in favor of the thematic examples, carefully selecting issues that are essential to modern medicine as the theme of each chapter, such as what disease is, the relationship between hospitals and surgery, mental illness, and medicine and social government. As a result, the Cambridge History of Medicine has more room for in-depth exploration, to explore more questions, such as how the concept of disease relates to the socio-cultural context, and the interaction of gender culture and medicine.
Under the creation of Roy Porter, the history of medicine is no longer limited to the development of medical science and technology, but focuses on the relationship between medicine and politics, economy, culture, religion, etc.; it is no longer limited to the contributions of heroes in the medical field to improve human health, and also pays attention to the status of ordinary patients in medical activities. It is this innovation that makes the Cambridge History of Medicine a distinctive history of medicine, a classic book that is indispensable for understanding modern medicine.
On the other hand, the Cambridge History of Medicine is no longer blindly a triumphant narrative, but while fully affirming the benefits of medicine for mankind, it also points out the difficulties facing contemporary medicine. Today, pure optimism is rare, and the euphoria of penicillin, the birth of a heart transplant, and the birth of the first IVF baby in 1978 is gone. Along with the high degree of medical progress comes the sense of panic brought about by genetic engineering and biotechnology, the dissatisfaction of patients with the depersonalization of health care, and the criticism of overwhelmed medical costs and the uneven distribution of health resources.
As Roy Porter puts it, "The Cambridge History of Medicine is not only about the rise of medicine and the interaction between medicine and science, society and the public, it also seeks to transcend." The purpose of this book is to put medicine under the microscope through historical analysis and explore what forces have driven such dramatic changes in medicine over the centuries and will continue to do so. Who controls medicine? Thus, the book raises questions about the social and political role of medicine. Because, if treatment has obviously always been the task of medicine, then is there something else hidden in medicine that may have an unpleasant side? ”
The Cambridge History of Medicine tries to show us that understanding the history of medicine is more than just singing the praises. Whether it's the risk that healthcare costs seem to be out of control, or the increase in iatrogenic diseases, the ambiguity of the medical underpinnings of psychiatry, the inequality of medical resources, the treatment of patients as "problems" rather than "individuals," and the increasingly healthy population trapped in increasingly specious laboratory testing and health anxiety, understanding the root causes of these problems must be considered historically.
The Cambridge History of Medicine uses popular, easy-to-understand and concise words to open the curtain on the history of medicine to us, and in a history full of success, it is not afraid to unveil the dark side, contradictions and challenges of medicine, face the complex relationship between medicine and war, ethics and power, and advocate humanitarianism and humanistic spirit. Yangzi Evening News/Purple Cow News reporter Huang Yanwen