This reader is part of a quartet of works designed as an integral part of the Open University course Medicine and Society in Europe, 1500- 1930 . Covering the early portion of the period under study, the readings selected Brunton (history of medicine, The Open U., UK) include excerpts from primary sources and more recent research and are meant to illustrate and problematize issues discussed more fully in the companion volume of essays entitled The Healing Arts: Health, Disease, and Society in Europe, 1800-1930 . The thirteen sections of the reader relate directly to the thirteen essays of that work, dealing with the rise of hospital medicine, the changing role of the hospital, the emergence of modern surgery, the role of the laboratory, the emergence of modern professionalism, women in medicine, disease in populations, colonial and imperial medicine, changing public health practices, eugenics, the growth of the mental asylum, war and medicine, and access to care. Annotation ©2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)