Медицина
Различные книги в жанре Медицина
Revolutionary Medicine
An engaging history of the role that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin played in the origins of public health in America Before the advent of modern antibiotics, one’s life could beabruptly shattered by contagion and death, and debility from infectiousdiseases and epidemics was commonplace for early Americans, regardless ofsocial status. Concerns over health affected the founding fathers and theirfamilies as it did slaves, merchants, immigrants, and everyone else in NorthAmerica. As both victims of illness and national leaders, the Founders occupieda unique position regarding the development of public health in America. Revolutionary Medicine refocuses thestudy of the lives of George and Martha Washington, Benjamin Franklin, ThomasJefferson, John and Abigail Adams, and James and Dolley Madison away from theusual lens of politics to the unique perspective of sickness, health, andmedicine in their era. For the founders, republican ideals fostered a reciprocalconnection between individual health and the “health” of the nation. Studyingthe encounters of these American founders with illness and disease, as well astheir viewpoints about good health, not only provides us with a richer and morenuanced insight into their lives, but also opens a window into the practice ofmedicine in the eighteenth century, which is at once intimate, personal, andfirst hand. Perhaps most importantly, today’s American public healthinitiatives have their roots in the work of America’s founders, for theyrecognized early on that government had compelling reasons to shoulder some newresponsibilities with respect to ensuring the health and well-being of itscitizenry. The state of medicine and public healthcare today is still awork in progress, but these founders played a significant role in beginning theconversation that shaped the contours of its development.
On Speed
Life in the Fast Lane: The author on the CHE Uppers. Crank. Bennies. Dexies. Greenies. Black Beauties. Purple Hearts. Crystal. Ice. And, of course, Speed. Whatever their street names at the moment, amphetamines have been an insistent force in American life since they were marketed as the original antidepressants in the 1930s. On Speed tells the remarkable story of their rise, their fall, and their surprising resurgence. Along the way, it discusses the influence of pharmaceutical marketing on medicine, the evolving scientific understanding of how the human brain works, the role of drugs in maintaining the social order, and the centrality of pills in American life. Above all, however, this is a highly readable biography of a very popular drug. And it is a riveting story. Incorporating extensive new research, On Speed describes the ups and downs (fittingly, there are mostly ups) in the history of amphetamines, and their remarkable pervasiveness. For example, at the same time that amphetamines were becoming part of the diet of many GIs in World War II, an amphetamine-abusing counterculture began to flourish among civilians. In the 1950s, psychiatrists and family doctors alike prescribed amphetamines for a wide variety of ailments, from mental disorders to obesity to emotional distress. By the late 1960s, speed had become a fixture in everyday life: up to ten percent of Americans were thought to be using amphetamines at least occasionally.Although their use was regulated in the 1970s, it didn't take long for amphetamines to make a major comeback, with the discovery of Attention Deficit Disorder and the role that one drug in the amphetamine family—Ritalin—could play in treating it. Today’s most popular diet-assistance drugs differ little from the diet pills of years gone by, still speed at their core. And some of our most popular recreational drugs—including the «mellow» drug, Ecstasy—are also amphetamines. Whether we want to admit it or not, writes Rasmussen, we’re still a nation on speed.
Dying to Get High
Dying to Get High with Susie Bright on Boing Boing!Warring Wines; ’You Want to Fight?’; Nurse Mary Jane in Santa CruzHigh Times interviews the authorsAlternet excerpt of the book («How Pot Became Demonized»)Discussion from the Santa Cruz MetroMarijuana as medicine has been a politically charged topic in this country for more than three decades. Despite overwhelming public support and growing scientific evidence of its therapeutic effects (relief of the nausea caused by chemotherapy for cancer and AIDS, control over seizures or spasticity caused by epilepsy or MS, and relief from chronic and acute pain, to name a few), the drug remains illegal under federal law.In Dying to Get High , noted sociologist Wendy Chapkis and Richard J. Webb investigate one community of seriously-ill patients fighting the federal government for the right to use physician-recommended marijuana. Based in Santa Cruz, California, the Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana (WAMM) is a unique patient-caregiver cooperative providing marijuana free of charge to mostly terminally ill members. For a brief period in 2004, it even operated the only legal non-governmental medical marijuana garden in the country, protected by the federal courts against the DEA. Using as their stage this fascinating profile of one remarkable organization, Chapkis and Webb tackle the broader, complex history of medical marijuana in America. Through compelling interviews with patients, public officials, law enforcement officers and physicians, Chapkis and Webb ask what distinguishes a legitimate patient from an illegitimate pothead, good drugs from bad, medicinal effects from just getting high. Dying to Get High combines abstract argument and the messier terrain of how people actually live, suffer and die, and offers a moving account of what is at stake in ongoing debates over the legalization of medical marijuana.
Coming Clean
Despite the widely accepted view that formal treatment and twelve-step groups are essential for overcoming dependencies on alcohol and drugs, each year large numbers of former addicts quietly recover on their own, without any formal treatment or participation in self-help groups at all. Coming Clean explores the untold stories of untreated addicts who have recovered from a lifestyle of excessive and compulsive substance use without professional assistance. Based on 46 in-depth interviews with formerly addicted individuals, this controversial volume examines their reasons for avoiding treatment, the strategies they employed to break away from their dependencies, the circumstances that facilitated untreated recovery, and the implications of recovery without treatment for treatment professionals as well as for prevention and drug policy. Because of the pervasive belief that addiction is a disease requiring formal intervention, few training programs for physicians, social workers, psychologists, and other health professionals explore the phenomenon of natural recovery from addiction. Coming Clean offers insights for treatment professionals of how recovery without treatment can work and how candidates for this approach can be identified. A detailed appendix outlines specific strategies which will be of interest to addicted individuals themselves who wish to attempt the process of recovery without treatment.
Biopolitics
The biological features of human beings are now measured, observed, and understood in ways never before thought possible, defining norms, establishing standards, and determining average values of human life. While the notion of “biopolitics” has been linked to everything from rational decision-making and the democratic organization of social life to eugenics and racism, Thomas Lemke offers the very first systematic overview of the history of the notion of biopolitics, exploring its relevance in contemporary theoretical debates and providing a much needed primer on the topic. Lemke explains that life has become an independent, objective and measurable factor as well as a collective reality that can be separated from concrete living beings and the singularity of individual experience. He shows how our understanding of the processes of life, the organizing of populations and the need to “govern” individuals and collectives lead to practices of correction, exclusion, normalization, and disciplining. In this lucidly written book, Lemke outlines the stakes and the debates surrounding biopolitics, providing a systematic overview of the history of the notion and making clear its relevance for sociological and contemporary theoretical debates.
Artificial Parts, Practical Lives
From the wooden teeth of George Washington to the Bly prosthesis, popular in the 1860s and boasting easy uniform motions of the limb, to today's lifelike approximations, prosthetic devices reveal the extent to which the evolution and design of technologies of the body are intertwined with both the practical and subjective needs of human beings. The peculiar history of prosthetic devices sheds light on the relationship between technological change and the civilizing process of modernity, and analyzes the concrete materials of prosthetics which carry with them ideologies of body, ideals, body politics, and culture. Simultaneously critiquing, historicizing, and theorizing prosthetics, Artificial Parts, Practical Lives lays out a balanced and complex picture of its subject, neither vilifying nor celebrating the merger of flesh and machine.
Raising Generation Rx
Winner, 2016 Outstanding Publication in the Sociology of Disability, American Sociological Association, Section Disability and Society Recent years have seen an explosion in the number of children diagnosed with “invisible disabilities” such as ADHD, mood and conduct disorders, and high-functioning autism spectrum disorders. Whether they are viewed as biological problems in brain wiring or as results of the increasing medicalization of childhood, the burden of dealing with the day-to-day trials and complex medical and educational decisions falls almost entirely on mothers. Yet few ask how these mothers make sense of their children’s troubles, and to what extent they feel responsibility or blame. Raising Generation Rx offers a groundbreaking study that situates mothers’ experiences within an age of neuroscientific breakthrough, a high-stakes knowledge-based economy, cutbacks in public services and decent jobs, and increased global competition and racialized class and gender inequality. Through in-depth interviews, observations of parents’ meetings, and analyses of popular advice, Linda Blum examines the experiences of diverse mothers coping with the challenges of their children’s “invisible disabilities” in the face of daunting social, economic, and political realities. She reveals how mothers in widely varied households learn to advocate for their children in the dense bureaucracies of the educational and medical systems; wrestle with anguishing decisions about the use of psychoactive medications; and live with the inescapable blame and stigma in their communities.
This House of Noble Deeds
On January 15, 1852, nine men representing various Hebrew charitable organizations came together to establish the Jews' Hospital in New York with a vision of offering free medical care to the indigent Hebrews in the City who were unable to provide for themselves during their illness. This was the beginning of The Mount Sinai Hospital. Now, a century and a half later, This House of Noble Deeds celebrates the scientific and medical achievements of The Mount Sinai Hospital. From its original 45-bed building, the Mount Sinai Medical Center has developed into a state-of-the-art facility comprising a 1200-bed hospital, a major medical school, and a research enterprise with a faculty of almost 3000. Arthur H. Aufses, Jr. and Barbara J. Niss have identified and documented the most important scientific contributions of Mount Sinai over the past 150 years. They present histories of each major department and division, rich with anecdotes, biographical sketches, and photographs. In addition, they share the fascinating story of the hospital's creation and development, a story that ultimately transcends the parameters of the hospital itself and speaks to the broader matter of Jewish and medical history in New York.