HPSC3002 - History of the Biomedical Sciences

Semester 2
Lecturer: TBA

Prerequisites: HPSC2100/2900 and HPSC2101/2901
6 credit points
2 x 2 hour lseminars per week (see timetable)
Assessment: tutorial work, essays, exam, tutorial participation

This course traces the history of concepts of health and disease in Western culture and the institutional, social, and cultural contexts in which they developed, with attention paid to the philosophical dimension (whether the doctor as philosopher in older times, or the philosophy of medicine as a new field). Medicine is and was not a monolithic 'thing', always one and the same (or an ever-improving stable entity). After an introduction devoted to the historical perspective on health and medicine, the course is divided into three main segments: medicine in the ancient and medieval eras, classical ('early modern') European medicine, and modern Western medicine, commonly held to being in the 19th century. In each of these sections of the course, we will study diseases and healing practices, ideas and institutions. The balance of coverage between medical thought and medical practice will vary depending on the state of historical knowledge of the given period. The last segments of the course look at different perspectives on medicine, no longer just historical: from the the cultural to the social, and the philosophical.