Medicine: From Magic to Microbes

This subject has the following teaching availabilities in 2008:

For the purposes of considering request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Cwth 2005), and Student Support and Engagement Policy, academic requirements for this subject are articulated in the Subject Overview, Learning Outcomes, Assessment and Generic Skills sections of this entry.

It is University policy to take all reasonable steps to minimise the impact of disability upon academic study, and reasonable adjustments will be made to enhance a student's participation in the University's programs. Students who feel their disability may impact on meeting the requirements of this subject are encouraged to discuss this matter with a Faculty Student Adviser and Student Equity and Disability Support: http://services.unimelb.edu.au/disability

This subject is a history of medicine from prehistory to the present, with a special emphasis on the past three hundred years. It explores the experience and understanding of disease and its therapies in different cultural settings, and the transformation in those understandings since the scientific revolution - from the magical to the molecular. It includes ancient medicine, the evolution of the hospital, the contest between lay and professional practitioners, dissection and the birth of the clinic, the discovery of the germ and the rise of the laboratory. What is the patient's story? How has medicine changed our experience and management of sickness, trauma, sexuality and difference? What do we mean by 'medicalisation' and how has it changed private life? Students who complete this subject should develop the ability to analyse the role of medicine and its practitioners in the shaping of private experience, public welfare, suffering and mortality.

• develop skills in written and oral communication;

• conduct independent research;

• make appropriate use of primary and secondary sources in mounting an argument;

• form defensible judgements based on a critical evaluation of conflicting arguments.

Formerly available as 136-225/325 and 136-039 Blood, Guts and Science. Students who have completed 136-225/325 Social History of Medicine or Blood, Guts and Science are not eligible to enrol in this subject.