Social History of Medicine 

About: Social History of Medicine is an academic journal published by Oxford University Press. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Public health & Medicine. It has an ISSN identifier of 0951-631X. Over the lifetime, 1413 publications have been published receiving 18692 citations.

The Importance of Social Intervention in Britain's Mortality Decline c.1850–1914: a Re-interpretation of the Role of Public Health

Abstract: Introduction Dr John Tatham of the General Register Office (GRO), looking back in 1905 over more than half a century' achievements by the public health movement since the passing of the first Public Health Act of 1848, found it necessary deprecatingly to remind his readers that “it will be well to utter a caution at this stage against the prevalent tendency to attribute to the results of sanitary administration alone the whole of the life-saving which has taken place.…” As most undergraduates today in medicine or modern history will know, it is now widely considered that this confidently expressed belief, that directed human agency informed by medical and sanitary science was the principal source of improvement in the nation' health, has apparently been deflated and debunked conclusively by the historical epidemiological research project of Professor Thomas McKeown and associates. The strong currency that McKeown' new orthodoxy continues to enjoy was illustrated recently by a leading article in the British Medical Journal , which concluded that improving nutrition—the essence of the “McKeown thesis”—is still the best explanation we have for the historical fall in mortality in Britain. The main purpose of this chapter will be to argue that McKeown' analysis of the empirical data has been misleading and to show that closer attention to the crucial elements of his own quantitative evidence in fact confirms the essential spirit of Tatham' contemporary assessment.

Backbone of History: Health and Nutrition in the Western Hemisphere

Abstract: Part I: 1. Introduction Part II. Methodology: 2. Reconstructing health profiles from skeletal remains Alan H. Goodman and Debra L. Martin 3. A health index from skeletal remains Richard H. Steckel, Paul W. Sciulli and Jerome C. Rose 4. Paleodemography of the Americas Robert McCaa Part III. Euro-Americans and African Americans in North America: 5. The health of the middle class: the St. Thomas Anglican church cemetery project Shelly Saunders, Ann Herring, Larry Sawchuck, Gerry Boyce, Rob Hoppa and Susan Klepp 6. The poor in the mid-nineteenth century Northeastern United States Rosanne L. Higgins, Michael R. Haines, Lorena Walsh and Joyce E. Sirianni 7. The effects of nineteenth-century military service on health Paul S. Sledzik and Lars G. Sandberg 8. The health of slaves and free blacks in the East Ted A. Rathbun and Richard H. Steckel 9. The quality of African American life in the Southwest near the turn of the twentieth century James Davidson, Jerome Rose, Myron Gutmann, Michael Haines, Keith Condon and Cindy Condon Part IV. Native Americans in Central America: 10. Social disruption and the Maya civilization of Mesoamerica Rebecca Storey, Lourdes Marquez Morfin and Vernon Smith 11. Health and nutrition in some Prehispanic Mesoamerican populations related with their way of life Lourdes Marquez Morfin, Robert McCaa, Rebecca Storey and Andres Del Angel Part V. Native Americans and Euro-Americans in South America: 12. Patterns of health and nutrition in prehistoric and historic Ecuador Douglas H. Ubelaker and Linda A. Newson 13. Economy, nutrition and disease in Southern, Coastal Brazil Walter Neves and Veronica Wesolowski Part VI. Native Americans in North America: 14. A biohistory of health and behavior in the Georgia Bight Clark Larsen, Alfred Crosby, et al. 15. Native Americans of Eastern North America Paul W. Sciulli and James Oberly 16. Cultural longevity in the face of biological stress Ann L. W. Stodder, Debra L. Martin, Alan H. Goodman and Daniel T. Reff 17. Health, nutrition, and demographic change in Native California Phillip L. Walker and Russell Thornton 18. Welfare history on the Great Plains S. Ryan Johansson and Douglas Owsley Part VII: 19. Patterns of health in the Western Hemisphere Richard H. Steckel and Jerome C. Rose Part VIII: 20. Conclusions Richard H. Steckel and Jerome C. Rose Part IX. Epilogue: 21. The body as evidence: the body of evidence George J. Armelagos and Peter J. Brown 22. Over-specialization and remedies Philip D. Curtin.