By Lawrence I. Conrad, Michael Neve, Vivian Nutton, Roy Porter, and Andrew Wear. 556 pp., illustrated. New York, Cambridge University Press, 1995. $34.95. ISBN 0-521-47564-3.
This book surveys the history of the Western medical traditionfrom the time of Hippocrates (fifth century b.c.) to about 1800,when it began to break down under the impact of major changesin medical theory and therapeutics. It was basically a Greektradition, built on a naturalistic understanding of disease,humoral pathology, Hippocratic medical ethics, and a high idealof physicians. These familiar features were transmitted initiallyto the Romans and through them to the people of the Middle Ages(within Western Christendom, the Byzantine Empire, and the Islamicworld), and later, after the rediscovery of the Greek and . . . [Full Text of this Article]
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