The History of Western Medicine

Excerpts from the Paper

The History of Western Medicine
History is a wealth of information in many fields. To capture so much information, authors need to understand the challenge in attempting an unbiased account of history. Many books attempt to recount the vastness of the past, and The Western Medical Tradition is no exception. It attempts to span from 800 B.C. to A.D. 1800., a huge period of history. In it, the medical advancements combined with a historical context are both interesting and readable. The authors, Lawrence I. Conrad, Michael Neve, Vivian Nutton, Roy Porter and Andrew Wear do an excellent job of combining the social, technological, historical, political and cultural elements of history into this interesting book of medical advancements. The...

.....ensive, logical and interesting way. It backs up all of its assumptions with well-researched date and a perspective that stems from optimism, wonderment and a passion for history. In many circumstances, a historian has a really hard task of reconciling the ambiguities of history, their own perceptions of history and concrete fact, while all the time making history readable and easy to understand. The authors of The Western Medical Tradition accomplish this task elegantly, and in a way that makes the text interesting and memorable.
Works Cited
Conrad, Lawrence I. & Neve, Michael & Nutton, Vivian &
Porter, Roy & Wear, Andrew. The Western Medical Tradition, 800 B.C. to A.D. 1800. Great Britain: Cambridge University Press, 1995.