Health and Wellness in 19th-Century America

(Hardback)

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Description

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. 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.

Reviews

As with others in the series, this title does a thorough job of covering broad health topics in a particular time period. High school and college students requiring reference material on the history of health and wellness for different eras will be well served by this set. * Booklist *
This particular volume accomplishes the daunting task of describing the complexity of health and wellness and disease in nineteenth-century America. . . . This is not just a medical history book. This is a book filled with stories that describe the harrowing lives and deaths, particularly of white Americans, African Americans, and Native Americans. . . . Health and Wellness in 19th Century America could be a useful source for academic libraries in health and medicine, psychology, history, religion, Native American studies, African American studies, women's studies, and many other interdisciplinary courses. * ARBA *
This book is an excellent introduction to the evolving state of health care in the U.S. and is most useful to those studying American history, women's history, and history of medicine. * Choice *

Author Bio

John C. Waller is associate professor of the history of medicine at Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI.