Irvine Loudon – författare

Childbed fever was by the far the most common cause of deaths associated with childbirth up to the Second World War throughout Britain and Europe. Otherwise known as puerperal fever, it was an infection which followed childbirth and caused thousands of miserable and agonising deaths every year.This book provides the first comprehensive account of this tragic disease from its recognition in the eighteenth century up to the second half of the twentieth century. Examining this within a broad history of infective diseases, the author goes on to explore ideas from past debates about the nature of infectious diseases and contagion, the discovery of bacteria and antisepsis, and charts the complicated path which led to the discovery of antibiotics.The large majority of deaths from puerperal fever were due to one micro-organism known as Streptococcus pyogenes, and the last chapter presents valuable new ideas on the nature and epidemiology of streptococcal disease up to the present day.

Covering all periods from Ancient Greece to the present day, this richly illustrated history of medicine offers information and insight on a wide variety of topics. The great milestones of medical history - among them the discovery of the circulation of the blood, vaccination against smallpox, the invention of the X-ray, the development of penicillin - are charted. They are set against the social context of medicine, with accounts of more neglected areas such as patterns of epidemics, the emergence of the medical profession, the history of nursing, unorthodox medical practice, the spread of western medicine beyond Europe and the US, and the patient's viewpoint. Authoritatively and accessibly written by a team of twenty distinguished medical historians and including a helpful glossary, a chronology, and a full index, this is a fascinating introduction to medicine in the west from its beginnings to the present day.

This is the first history of general practice under the National Health Service, from 1948 to the present. It is written by a team of contributors all of whom have, in various ways, been deeply involved in the development of primary health care in Britain. Between them, they cover all the main aspects of general practice, including changing concepts of illness and clinial practices, politics and organization, medical education, public relations, and international comparisons. They examine how the relative stagnation of the early years, when morale and funding were low, gave way to a renaissance in general practice in the 1960s which changed the service out of all recognition. // Published with an extensive chronology and statistical appendix, this book will serve as an essential reference for medical historians and for the wide variety of people involved in health-care services, both in Britain and the wider world. fifty years, from 1948 to the present. It is written in a clear and accessible manner by a team of distinguished medical historians, many of whom are, or have been, general practitioners deeply involved in the development of primary health care services in this country. The book covers all the main aspects of general practice, including changing concepts of illness and clinical practices, politics and organization, medical education, public relations, and international comparisons. Between them, the contributors show how the oldest branch of medicine gradually rediscovered its role alongside the rapid advances of specialized medicine. They explain how, after a period of relative stagnation in the 1960s, there followed a renaissance in general practice which changed the service out of all recognition. Published with an extensive chronology and statistical appendix, this book will serve as an essential reference for medical historians as well as the wide variety of people involved in the health care services.

This study is concerned not with famous doctors and their discoveries, but with the rank and file practitioners: the surgeon-apothecaries of the 18th century and the general practitioners of the 19th. Some common assumptions about the history of the medical profession are challenged in this book, based largely on manuscript sources.

This is the first international study of maternal care and maternal mortality. Over the last two hundred years different countries developed quite different systems of maternal care. Death in Childbirth is a meticulously researched analysis, firmly grounded in the available statistics, of the evolution of those systems between 1800 and 1950 in Britain, the USA, Australia and New Zealand, and continental Europe.Irvine Loudon examines the effectiveness of various forms of maternal care by means of the measurement of maternal mortality - the number of women who died as a result of childbirth. His detailed study answers a number of important questions: What was the relative risk of a home or hospital delivery, or a delivery by a midwife as opposed to a doctor? What was the safest country in which to have a baby, and what were the factors which accounted for enormous international differences? Why, against all expectations, did maternal mortality fail to decline significantly until the late 1930s? It is an invaluable contribution to medical and social history.