1st Edition
The Rise of Causal Concepts of Disease Case Histories
By K. Codell Carter
Copyright 2003
248 Pages
by
Routledge
248 Pages
by
Routledge
248 Pages
by
Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
Much of contemporary medical theory and practice focuses on the identification of specific causes of disease. However, this has not always been the case: until the early nineteenth century physicians thought of diseases in quite different terms. The modern quest for causes of disease can be seen as a single Lakatosian research programme. One can track the rise and elaboration of this programme... Read more
Contents: Preface; Introduction; Causes of disease in early 19th-century practical medicine; Universal necessary causes; Etiological characterizations; Microorganisms as causes; The bacterial hyphothesis; A bacterial theory of disease; Proving disease causation; The etiological standpoint; An ideational theory of disease; Protozoal and viral theories of disease; A nutritional deficiency theory of disease; Some final thoughts; Bibliography; Index.
Biography
K. Codell Carter
'The book is extremely well researched. The author has used numerous primary sources, many of them written in German and French. Excellent addition to philosophy, history of science, and medicine collections.' E-Streams 'Occasionally a book comes along from another discipline that illuminates a new path for historical study. The philosopher K Codell Carter's authoritative study of the transition from an assumption that diseases have multiple causes to the modern belief in universal, necessary causes is such a book. For decades, historians have fruitfully explored the social history of modern medicine to the neglect of its intellectual history. Carter's careful dissection of the changing concepts that led to the germ theory of infectious diseases provides a sturdy base on which historians may rectify this imbalance and investigate previously unasked questions about the history of medicine in the last hundred years.' Medical History
