Level: 2

Semester: 1

Prerequisite: None

 

Course Description: 

This course aims to present an analytic survey of the changes in the European tradition of medicine - which includes medicine in the Caribbean - from its earliest beginnings to the period of its most rapid change.  The course will emphasize how traditional procedures of diagnosis, surgery, disease prevention, drug therapy, and patient care have changed under the increasing impact of “scientific” modes of investigation, so as to produce, by the 21st century, a form of medicine radically different from that practised two hundred years before.  This course is a study of the history of medicine from antiquity to the present day.  It explores the ideologies, societies and practices of the past that have been pivotal to the development of the medical tradition as we know it today.  It also relates medical ideas to broader cultural movements and provides an exploration of alternative medicine in particular regions throughout time to broaden the understanding of parallel movements of medical ideas.

 

Learning Outcomes:

  1. Identifying systematically in each period the (i) ideology, (ii) practitioners and (iii) distinct practices related to medicine
  2. Define Western medical tradition, biomedicine, indigenous medicine and medical pluralism
  3. Identify and explain the ways in which the influences and ideologies of the Medieval, Renaissance and Enlightenment period affected the operation of health
  4. Identify and assess the consequences of periods of global conflict on the evolution of medicine.
  5. Identify and assess the contribution of Judaism, Christianity, Arabic and Asian medicine on the Western Medical Tradition
  6. Determine the differences and similarities among Asian, Western and Arabic medical practices
  7. Assess the ways in which disease and plague have hindered and advanced society, public health and the practice of medicine
  8. Identify the main female protagonists in the evolution of medicine and the changing role of women throughout the history of medicine
  9. Identify and describe the major innovations and medical controversies of the 20th century
  10. Explain how the introduction of western medicine propelled the imperialist agenda in colonial societies

 

 

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