Modern Medicine

by Chris Oxlade

Published 10 September 2012
There have been extraordinary changes in medicine since the start of the 20th Century. Diseases that were killers in 1900, such as polio, have been almost wiped out. Hundreds of new drugs have been developed. This book shows how today’s extraordinary surgical techniques, such as heart transplants, would have been unthinkable for a doctor a hundred years ago. And, unlike 1900, people in many countries today can see a doctor or other healthcare worker when they need to, often for free.

How has our knowledge of medicine and public health built up since prehistoric and ancient times? How often did new advances benefit ordinary people? This series looks at major changes in medical knowledge and shows that many factors prevented a strong understanding of the human body and disease until modern times, and that inequalities of healthcare still exist around the world.