Problems and Methods in the History of Medicine

Originally published in 1987, Problems and Methods in the History of Medicine is a collection of papers surveying and assessing the particular approaches and techniques which have been used in the history of medicine in the past or are still being developed (from the influence of Annales to the role of the computer). The emphasis is on historical practice rather than methodology in isolation. Besides the topics indicated above, a third problematic is that of historical demography. A common theme to all three groups of paper is the relation between quantitative ‘hard’ data and qualitative ‘soft’ data.

Notes on Contributors Acknowledgments Introduction Part I: The French Connection 1. The Annales and Medical Historiography: Bilan et Perspectives, Toby Gelfand 2. Twenty Years On: Problems of Historical Methodology in the History of Health, J.P Goubert 3. Montpelier Medical Students and the Medicalisation of 18th-Century France, Colin Jones 4. Popular Culture and Knowledge of the Body: Infancy and the Medical Anthropologist, François Loux Part II: Medical History and Historical Demography 5. Methodological Problems in Modern Urban History Writing: Graphic Representations of Urban Mortality 1750-1850, Arthur E. Imhof 6. No Death Without Birth: The Implications of English Mortality in the Early Modern Period, E.A. Wrigley Part III: Computers and the History of Institutions 7. Quantitative and Qualitative Perspectives on the Asylum, Anne Digby 8. Hospital History: New Sources and Methods, Guenter B. Risse Part IV: The Qualitative and Quantitative 9. Madness, Suicide, and the Computer, Michael MacDonald 10. Interfaces: Perspectives of Health and Illness in Early Modern England, Andrew Wear Index