Health and Healing in America, 1650-1980: History of Western Medicine

Catalog description

This course examines major themes and problems in the history of health and medicine in America. Students will explore the changing conceptions of health, illness, and disease from the colonial period through the 20th century in the U.S. Students will analyze the economic, political and cultural forces that helped shape the activities of patients and medical practitioners within an evolving medical marketplace. This course will introduce students to the perspectives of a wide range of sufferers and healers. Students will examine how medical theories, gender, race, class, and ethnicity have shaped the history of medicine in complex ways.