The Making of Modern Hospitals in Central Europe Between the Enlightenment and the Second World War - (Clio Medica) (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

This book attempts to fill an existing gap in the history of modern medicine by examining Central European hospitals. It does not subscribe to the "big bang theory" of the sudden rise of the modern hospital. Instead, it traces the (micro-)history of the municipal, university, and church hospitals, as well as the provincial institutions for the mentally ill. It raises the question of how authorities, burghers, physicians, patients, and staff dismantled caregiving premises and promoted the establishment of modern healthcare infrastructures while Central Europe was still widely associated with menacing plague and cholera epidemics.

Contributors are: Zdeněk Nebřenský, Ludwig Pelzl, Ingrid Kusniráková, Ivana Horbec, Eva Hajdinová, Daniela Tinková, Pavlína Pončíková, Janka Kovács, Martynas Jakulis, Piotr Franaszek, and Barbora Rambousková.

About the Author

Zdeněk Nebřenský, Ph.D., is Associate Researcher at the Charles University in Prague. He worked at the German Historical Institute in Warsaw and was also an assistant professor at the Medical University of Vienna. He has published monographs, thematic issues, and many articles on the history of Central Europe in a globalized world.

Daniela Tinková, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of History at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague. She is the author of several monographs focusing mainly on the European and Bohemian Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and the history of science and medicine. Her most recent works include the comprehensive history of Enlightenment in the Bohemian lands.