Book chapter
Medicine
The Fin-De-Siècle World, pp 487-500
2015
Abstract
Medical advancements at the Fin De Siècle enabled the eradication of a number of diseases. New understandings of how disease was spread through bacterial infections led to the development of programmes of immunisation which saw, at least in the West, the end of once fatal diseases such as scarlet fever, yellow fever, diphtheria, tuberculosis and syphilis. The period was also notable for its surgical developments, which included successful appendectomies (first carried out in 1880) and the surgical removal of ulcers (1881). New understandings in medical knowledge were in part driven by increasing levels of specialisation, with medical practitioners electing to work in distinctive areas of enquiry (surgery, physiology, bacteriology), which were in turn supported by the establishment of specialist institutions (children's hospitals, geriatric care, sanatoriums and other disease specific places of treatment). Such developments were underpinned by nationally inflected forms of state support. From the mid-nineteenth century in parts of Europe (notably in France and Germany), medical training took place in universities, which established a link between research and medical care. Elsewhere (as in the USA) less state regulated cultures led to the creation of private medical training colleges that in the main specialised in teaching rather than research (the exceptions being elite universities such as Harvard and Johns Hopkins). While the major medical advancements of the day took place in Europe and North America, there was also a strong interest in the claims of alternative medicine that had links to Asian cultures (see Porter 1997: 389-96).
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Details
- Title
- Medicine
- Creators
- Andrew Smith
- Publication Details
- The Fin-De-Siècle World, pp 487-500
- Publisher
- Routledge
- Edition
- 1
- Resource Type
- Book chapter
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- English and Philosophy
- Other Identifier
- 991021013175304721