Books in Through The Ages series

Did prehistoric people and the ancient civilizations understand health and disease? Did they make any advances in medical knowledge? This books explains that humans faced new challenges when they began to live together in large communities. It shows how some physicians realized that disease might have natural causes, not supernatural ones, and so could be treated by natural methods and prevented by improving public health.

By the middle of the 18th century, the profession of medicine and its place in the sciences was entering a period of rapid change. Many of the old ideas about the human body and how to cure or prevent diseases were being questioned. But was this just by chance? This book shows how a wide range of inventions, developments, and other factors created ideal circumstances for medicine to make huge advances in the Industrial Age.

There have been extraordinary changes in medicine since the start of the 20th Century. Diseases that were killers in 1900, such as polio, have been almost wiped out. Hundreds of new drugs have been developed. This book shows how today’s extraordinary surgical techniques, such as heart transplants, would have been unthinkable for a doctor a hundred years ago. And, unlike 1900, people in many countries today can see a doctor or other healthcare worker when they need to, often for free.