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Examining a 300-year period that encompasses the Scientific Revolution, this engrossing book offers a fresh and clearly organized discussion of the human experience of health, medicine, and health care, from the Age of Discovery to the era of the French Revolution.

Table of Contents

Series Foreword
1. Factors in Early Modern Health and Medicine
Factors in Individual Health and Well-Being
The Early Modern World
Societal Factors in Health and Medicine
2. Education and Training: Learned and Nonlearned
Western Traditions
Early Modern Mexicans
African Slaves in the Caribbean
The Chinese
3. Religion and Medicine
The Expanding Christian World
Africans at Home and Enslaved
Religion and Medicine among the Aztecs
Ming and Qing China
4. Women's Health and Medicine
The Aztecs
Caribbean Slaves
The Chinese
The Europeans
5. Infants and Children
They Are Born: Neonatal and Infant Health
Hazards to Older Children's Health and Lives
European Institutions of Child Care
6. Infectious Diseases
Background
The Continuing Saga: Fleas, Rats, and Plague
Mosquitoes, Malaria, and Yellow Fever
Filth and Parasites: Typhus and Dysentery
When the Air Is Deadly: Smallpox, Influenza, and Measles
Waterborne Diseases: Cholera and Typhoid Fever
When Sex Needed Drugs: Syphilis and Other Venereal Diseases
7. Environmental and Occupational Hazards
Environmental Hazards
Occupational Hazards
8. Surgeons and Surgery
The Aztecs
The Chinese
The Islamic World
The Europeans
9. Mental and Emotional Health and Disorders
The Aztecs
Caribbean Slaves
The Chinese
The Turks and Persians
The Europeans
10. Apothecaries and Their Pharmacopeias
Types of Materia Medica
Early Modern Dispensers of Medicinal Materials and Their Sources
The Worldwide Pharmacopeia
11. War, Health, and Medicine
The Aztec Way of War
Europeans at War
Care for the Wounded and Veterans
War within the House of Islam
12. Medical Institutions
The Chinese
The Islamic World
The Europeans
European Institutions Abroad
13. Healing and the Arts
The Visual Arts
Doctors in Dramas and Novels
Medicine in Poetry
Glossary
Bibliography
Index

About the Author

Joseph P. Byrne, PhD, is historian and professor of honors humanities at Belmont University, Nashville, TN. His published works include ABC-CLIO's The Black Death, Daily Life during the Black Death, The Encyclopedia of the Black Death, and Encyclopedia of Pestilence, Pandemics, and Plagues.

Reviews

[A] well-written text. . . . [An] ideal starting point for anyone interested in the place of medicine during this time period. Summing Up: Recommended. Undergraduate and general collections in history, women's history, and history of medicine.
*Choice*

This series is at once accessible and yet interesting enough to satisfy curious readers of the history of health and wellness. . . . This work is recommended for public and academic libraries as a valuable layperson's introduction to health and wellness across time and spanning the globe.
*ARBA*