Robert A. Aronowitz - Böcker

This 1998 book offers historical essays about how diseases change their meaning. Each of the diseases or etiologic hypotheses in this book has had a controversial and contested history: psychosomatic views of ulcerative colitis, twentieth-century chronic fatigue syndrome, Lyme disease, angina pectoris, risk factors for coronary heart disease, and the type A hypothesis. At the core of these controversies are disagreements among investigators, clinicians, and patients over the best way to deal with what individuals bring to disease. By juxtaposing the history of the different diseases, the author shows how values and interests have determined research programs, public health activities, clinical decisions, and the patient's experience of illness. The approach is novel in its interweaving of historical research and the clinical experiences of the author. It should appeal to an audience of physicians, policy makers, social scientists and the general reader interested in broad intellectual currents in modern medicine.

This 1998 book offers historical essays about how diseases change their meaning. Each of the diseases or etiologic hypotheses in this book has had a controversial and contested history: psychosomatic views of ulcerative colitis, twentieth-century chronic fatigue syndrome, Lyme disease, angina pectoris, risk factors for coronary heart disease, and the type A hypothesis. At the core of these controversies are disagreements among investigators, clinicians, and patients over the best way to deal with what individuals bring to disease. By juxtaposing the history of the different diseases, the author shows how values and interests have determined research programs, public health activities, clinical decisions, and the patient's experience of illness. The approach is novel in its interweaving of historical research and the clinical experiences of the author. It should appeal to an audience of physicians, policy makers, social scientists and the general reader interested in broad intellectual currents in modern medicine.

Unnatural History explores the change over the last two centuries from isolated, private fears to an immense individual and collective risk of breast cancer. The book begins with the experiences of a Quaker woman diagnosed with breast cancer in 1812 and ends with our problematic era in which almost every woman is waiting for 'the axe to fall'. In between, the book traces changes in the beliefs and values of women and their doctors, medical knowledge and technology, clinical and public health practices, and the biological impact of the disease. Unnatural History suggests that we have oversold both the fear of breast cancer and the effectiveness of screening and treatment, leading to miscalculation at the individual and societal levels.