Course description
From the French Revolution to COVID-19, modern medicine has been defined by the development and implementation of new technologies. What have been the effects of these new technologies on our bodies, and on the practice of medicine? This course integrates insights from the history of medicine and the history of technology more generally, and addresses a number of important questions: how do we decide which medical technologies to pursue and which to ignore? How have we balanced technological progress with a concern for those who are sick now, and for the economics of health care? How and why have medical technologies shaped, and been shaped by, broader cultural change? And, ultimately, how can we use history to develop good judgment about the relationship between technology, medicine, and health? Topics examined include the rise of clinical medicine in early nineteenth-century France and its use of new diagnostic technologies; visual technologies and diagnosis; microscope technology and the emergence of bacteriology; technologies of management and the rise of the modern hospital; the x-ray and the emergence of new visualization technologies; the technologies of nursing and other healthcare professions; antibiotics, drugs, and the technologies of mass-production; technology and disease identity; technology, gender, and sexuality; technology, race, and genetic medicine; contraception, obstetrics and the technologies of reproduction; digital technologies and the computerization of medical records; implantation, prosthesis, and technologies of the body; and ventilators, diagnostic testing, and the technological dimensions of COVID-19 crisis. Throughout the course, we pay particular attention to the way in which medical technologies have interacted with social categories such as race, class, gender, and nationality, as well as to the unique relationship between American medicine and the world of high technology.
