Innovations In Medicine And Health: Diffusion And Resistance In The Twentieth Century (routledge Studies In The Social History Of Medicine)

Innovations in Health and Medicine Innovations in Health and Medicine brings together cutting-edge research by medical historians from Britain, Germany, France, the USA, Japan, and New Zealand. Innovative in its approach to innovation, it focuses on diffusion and resistance, and organization as well as technology. The collection features issues such as control and compliance, professional power and economic constraint, cultural divides, ‘configured users’ and ingenuity. The Introduction relates the collection to history and sociology of innovation and technology, asking what is distinctive about medicine and health. The book brings comparative perspectives to bear in three ways: • • • Micro-studies look at close neighbours using ultrasound scanners in Scotland, and chronic disease clinics in Manchester. Cross-national studies show how innovations fared as they migrated: Western nursing in Japan; Eastern acupuncture in the UK; and Swiss bone surgery in the former East Germany and the USA. A section on re-innovation includes new media representation of medicine, and an alternative form of kidney dialysis in the UK; reinvention of the midwife in New Zealand; and living donor transplants in France. Explorations of recent cases, along with deeper probing of the past century, call into question how the past relates to the future. Health policy-makers and analysts, practitioners, users, and historians will find the editor’s claims for the uses of history provocative. With its emphasis on clarity of writing, mix of empirical details and analysis, and rich bibliography, this volume offers rewards to academic and health service readers alike. Jennifer Stanton works with the History Group at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She has published on the history of medical technologies, infectious disease research and policy, and African child health. Routledge Studies in the Social History of Medicine Edited by Bernard Harris, Department of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Southampton, UK The Society for the Social History of Medicine was founded in 1969, and exists to promote research into all aspects of the field, without regard to limitations of either time or place. In addition to this book series, the Society also organizes a regular programme of conferences, and publishes an internationally recognized journal, Social History of Medicine. The Society offers a range of benefits, including reduced-price admission to conferences and discounts on SSHM books, to its members. Individuals wishing to learn more about the Society are invited to contact the series editor through the publisher. The Society took the decision to launch ‘Studies in the Social History of Medicine’, in association with Routledge, in 1989, in order to provide an outlet for