Of curing and healing

[摘要] In his entertaining, concise history of medicine, Britishmedical historian Roy Porter reminds us that in thehumoral medical tradition of Western medicine, drugswere not expected to play the decisive role in healing—“banking on heroic remedies was what quacks did.”1Traditional therapeutics had many strings to its bow,including regulation of diet and environment … and giving wise counsel. A good drug was expected less to zapa disease than, through purging, sweating, or cleansingthe blood, to aid the healing power of Nature.1In the past century, things have changed substantially.In the early 1900s the study of materia medica transformedinto laboratory-based pharmacology, drugs became massproduced in factories, and the modern-day pharmaceutical industry emerged with its enormous influence. Such isthat current influence that writer Thomas Hager begins hisbook by describing an art exhibit displaying.

[学科分类] 卫生学