This unit introduces students to historical perspectives on health, disease and medicine in the Western world. A social and cultural history explores how changes in medical perceptions and technologies impacted upon individuals' health, as well as society's ability to detect and control disease, and postpone mortality. Students explore the assessment and management of epidemics and outbreaks (such as the Black Death) by past societies. Students also study the intersections of cultural, political and religious impacts on health and sickness in cases as diverse as witchcraft trials in sixteenth-century France and Switzerland, health care within the ideological contexts provided by Nazi... -- Course Website
Instructor: Associate Professor Angus Cook
