What forces shaped medicine as we understand it today? What were the social consequences of major health crises, like the Black Death? And was Western medicine truly “Western”? These are some of the questions we will examine in this survey of the history of medicine before 1800.
The course follows four major themes from Antiquity through the Scientific Revolution:
Transformations in medical theory: from the emergence of Galenic medicine—a system that dominated nearly two millennia—to Renaissance anatomy and its challenges to classical authority
Changes in medical practice: although historical models of the body and therapeutics differed sharply from today’s, healers still had to persuade patients of their expertise, and sufferers navigated a wide range of healing options.
The rise of medical institutions and regulation: from the Medieval hospital to emerging systems of medical licensing and oversight in Colonial and Early Republic America
Global exchanges of knowledge and disease: including the translation movements of the High Middle Ages, the so-called Columbian exchange, and the entanglements of medicine with colonial empires.
By exploring bodies, cures, diseases, and their consequences across social, cultural, economic, scientific, technological, and ethical contexts, the course offers a broad view of how medical knowledge and practice evolved before the modern era.
- Professor: Gaston Javier Basile