Wow! eBook
Fatal Thirst: Diabetes in Britain until Insulin
Author(s): Elizabeth Lane Furdell (Author)
- Publisher: Brill
- Publication Date: December 10, 2008
- Edition: 1st
- Language: English
- Print length: 208 pages
- ISBN-10: 9004172505
- ISBN-13: 9789004172500
Book Description
Although ancient and medieval doctors knew of the disorder called diabetes, the disease they treated was rare and largely confined to young sufferers. By the late Renaissance, however, the increasing incidence of diabetes in older adults required a re-examination of what caused the malady and how to cure it. Led by English healers, such as controversial apothecary Nicholas Culpeper and elite physician Thomas Willis, the study of diabetes produced significant debate in print over the locus of the disease and remedies for its treatment. These debates paralleled the growing schism in English medical circles over contradictory iatric theories and professional jurisdiction. On the eve of insulin’s discovery, diabetologists still quarrelled over what diets might alleviate its symptoms. Including perspectives from patients and drawing on myriad sources, this book examines changing approaches to diabetes and its victims within the context of medical and scientific progress.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“Furdell has produced an impressive and compassionate history of an old disease that continues to affect many new lives today. It would be a useful text to assign in an upper-division or graduate-level history of medicine course.”
Lynda Payne, University of Missouri, Kansas City (Bull. Hist. Med., 2010, 84: 518-519)
Lynda Payne, University of Missouri, Kansas City (Bull. Hist. Med., 2010, 84: 518-519)
About the Author
Elizabeth Lane Furdell, Ph.D. (1973) in History, Kent State University, is Professor of History at the University of North Florida. She has published extensively on early modern medicine including The Royal Doctors (Rochester, 2001) and Textual Healing (Brill, 2005).
