| Chronic Disease in the Twentieth Century How the evolving concept of chronic disease has affected patients and politics in the United States and Europe. Long and recurring illnesses have burdened sick people and their doctors since ancient times, but until recently the concept of "chronic disease" had limited significance. Even lingering diseases like tuberculosis, a leading cause of mortality, did not inspire dedicated public health activities until the later decades of the nineteenth century, when it became understood as a treatable infectious disease. Historian of medicine George Weisz analyzes why the idea of chronic disease assumed critical importance in the twentieth century and how it acquired new meaning as one of the most serious problems facing national healthcare systems. Chronic Disease in the Twentieth Century challenges the conventional wisdom that the concept of chronic disease emerged because medicine's ability to cure infectious disease led to changing patterns of disease. Instead, it suggests, the concept was constructed and has evolved to serve a variety of political and social purposes. While an international consensus now exists regarding a chronic disease crisis that demands better forms of disease management, the different paths taken by these countries during the twentieth century continue to exert profound influence. This book seeks to explain why, among the innumerable problems faced by societies, some problems in some places become viewed as critical public issues that shape health policy. George Weisz is a professor of social studies and medicine and Cotton-Hannah Chair for the History of Medicine at McGill University in Quebec. He is author and editor of several books, including Divide and Conquer: A Comparative History of Medical Specialization , and co-editor of Greater than the Parts: Holism in Biomedicine, 1920-1950 and Body Counts: Medical Quantification in Historical and Sociological Perspectives. |