The History of Medicine

This week, Freud visits the United States... and very little changes, until the rise of the Nazis and World War II. Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook!   Transcripts and Sources here!

This week, Freud goes on a war path, expelling all who disagree with him. No one is safe, even the founding members of the Wednesday Psychological Society. Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook!   Transcripts and Sources here!

Thanks for waiting everyone. This week, we continue the saga of Sigmund Freud, and talk about how he first began to rise to prominence. Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook! Transcripts and Sources here!  

Unfortunately, there’s not going to be an episode this week on account of me moving into a new house, and having a bunch of work suddenly appear over the weekend. Thanks for listening, and stay tuned; we'll be back to normal episodes next week. 

This week, we start talking about Sigmund Freud, his earliest exploits in medicine, and then the basics of his psychoanalytic theory. Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook!   Transcripts and Sources here!

This week, we talk about the alienists, and their reforms to asylums of the mid 1800s. Phillipe Pinel is to lay the groundwork, but still no major progress is made in terms of treatment of psychological disease. A Painting of Pinel Releasing Patients Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook!   Transcripts and Sources here!

This week, we talk about the biological psychiatry movement of the mid to late 1800s. Its most important discovery: Alzheimer's disease. And that's about it. Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook!   Transcripts and Sources here!

We're back, with season 4, about mental illness. We'll start this week in the 1770s, with Franz Mesmer, who "discovered" animal magnetism, and accidentally actually discovered hypnosis. Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook! Transcripts and Sources here!  

This week we'll wrap up the season with a discussion about the future of public health. We talk about recent trends and how things will probably go, regarding preventative and curative efforts. Next season: Mental illness. Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook!   Transcripts and Sources here!

This week, we re-visit international public health efforts, with the formation of the World Health Organization in 1948. We talk about some of their greatest achievements and responsibilities, and some of the recent controversies too. Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook!   Transcripts and Sources here!

This week, we wrap up our episodes about health insurance by talking about the United States, and its rather complex mix of health insurance and delivery systems. Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook!   Transcripts and Sources here!

This week, we cross the ocean to Canada, where the first nationalized health insurance was set up. It started in a province called Saskatchewan, and gained in popularity until it became a national program. Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook!   Transcripts and Sources here!

This week, we learn about the Beveridge model, where a government fully runs the healthcare system. The earliest national attempts at such efforts start in the Soviet Union, but they are really implemented effectively by the Brits, culminating in the National Health Service. Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook!   Transcripts and Sources here!

This week, we'll keep talking about health insurance. Two more really important government interventions lead to the further adaption of health insurance systems, one in Russia, and one in Germany. Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook!   Transcripts and Sources here!

This week, we'll learn about the beginnings of health insurance. It's an annoying, but vital part of modern healthcare systems. It starts with informal community-organized societies, that basically were health insurance. Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook!   Transcripts and Sources here!

This week, a whole bunch of scientists help figure out how vitamins and minerals work. That gets applied to preventing and curing lots of deficiency related diseases, like rickets, and saves/improves many lives. Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook!   Transcripts and Sources here!

This week, we'll learn about how modern voluntary health organizations got started, by looking at the history of the National Tuberculosis Association. They pioneered fundraising techniques, created massive education campaigns, and basically established the playbook these organizations use to this day. Donate to the American Lung Association! Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebo...

This week, we learn about some ways in the late 1800s to early 1900s that child welfare was improved. Milk gets a lot less dangerous, parents learn how to parent, and children are actually checked up on and fed, all very good things.  Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook!   Transcripts and Sources here!

This week, we see the practical effects of all the new science that we've been talking about for ages. We talk about Dr. William H Park, and Dr. Anna Williams, who were pioneers in applying the new discoveries to improve public health. And we talk about the big picture improvements as such practices spread. Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook! Transcripts and Sources here!

This week, we learn more about how immunization works, with the help of a whole lotta animal testing. All this improves the creation of vaccines, and opens up new treatment options. Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook! Transcripts and Sources here!  

This week, we learn about how diseases are spread. Scientists of the last 1800s and early 1900s figure out that seemingly healthy people can still spread disease, and that not only people can spread disease, but other animals too. These are to have massive implications for future public health efforts. Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook! Transcripts and Sources here!

This week, we move into the bacteriological era. Let's learn about how we established that germs cause disease, and about where that might lead soon. Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook! Transcripts and Sources here!

This week, we'll talk about the first sanitary conference, which was an early attempt at international cooperation on public health issues. Unfortunately, it doesn't go that well, because of some scientific bickering. Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook! Transcripts and Sources here!

This week, we talk through some of the earliest laws that improved working conditions in the factories, at least for women and children. We also learn about some of the terrible conditions they were working in before that. Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook! Transcripts and Sources here!

This week, we talk about some of the changes that happened in response to the terrible living conditions many working-class people faced. New advocacy groups, government bodies, and regulations were created to help address these problems. Check out our website! E-mail me! Say hi on Facebook! Transcripts and Sources here!