Professionalizing Medicine: James Reeves and the Choices That Shaped American Health Care - Paperback

by John M. Harris (Author)

This biography of James Edmund Reeves, whose legislative accomplishments cemented American physicians' control of the medical marketplace, illuminates landmarks of American health care: the troubled introduction of clinical epidemiology and development of botanic medicine and homeopathy, the Civil War's stimulation of sanitary science and hospital medicine, the rise of government involvement, the revolution in laboratory medicine, and the explosive growth of phony cures. It recounts the human side of medicine as well, including the management of untreatable diseases and the complex politics of medical practice and professional organizing. Reeves' life provides a reminder that while politics, economics, and science drive the societal trajectory of modern health care, moral decisions often determine its path.

Front Jacket

This biography of James Edmund Reeves, whose legislative accomplishments cemented American physicians' control of the medical marketplace, illuminates landmarks of American health care: the troubled introduction of clinical epidemiology and development of botanic medicine and homeopathy, the Civil War's stimulation of sanitary science and hospital medicine, the rise of government involvement, the revolution in laboratory medicine, and the explosive growth of phony cures. It recounts the human side of medicine as well, including the management of untreatable diseases and the complex politics of medical practice and professional organizing. His life is reminder that while politics, economics, and science drive the societal trajectory of modern health care, moral decisions often determine its path.

Author Biography

John M. Harris Jr., MD is an internal medicine specialist, medical executive, and medical educator who lives in Tucson, Arizona. He has written about nineteenth-century medicine's persisting and distorting influence on today's interpretation of medical professionalism.