Permeable Walls by Graham Mooney

Permeable Walls by Graham Mooney

Visiting relatives and friends in medical institutions is a common practice in all corners of the world. People probably go into hospitals as a visitor more frequently than they do as a patient. Permeable Walls is the first book devoted to the history of hospital and asylum visiting and deflects attention from medical history’s more traditionally studied constituencies, patients and doctors. Covering the eighteenth to the late twentieth centuries, and taking case studies from around the globe, the authors demonstrate that hospitals and asylums could be remarkably permeable institutions. However, policies towards visitors have varied from outright exclusion, as in the case of some isolation hospitals in Victorian Britain, to near open access in the first Chinese missionary hospitals. Historical studies of visitors and visiting, as a result, tell us much about the changing relationship between healthcare institutions and the communities they serve. These histories are particularly relevant at a time when service providers seek ways to involve patients’ representatives in healthcare decision making; to control hospital super-bugs; and to make the hospital environment accessible yet safe and secure. With the re-emergence of restricted visiting, the subject remains one of the most emotive topics in the history of institutional medicine. Adopting a wide-ranging definition of visitors, from official inquirers to family members, Permeable Walls provides an innovative perspective on hospitals and asylums historically and will interest historians of medicine, charity and governance, as well as healthcare policy-makers.

"The chapters as a whole deal eloquently with the underlying relationships, highly complex and sometimes controversial, between the hospitals and their visitors, especially parents in the case of sick children" – in: Wellcome History 44 (Summer 2010), 22 "…this excellent and timely collection… these are very valuable contributions that develop the Porterian reorientation of medical history away from the profession and towards a wider social history of health care." – in: Medical History 54/4 (2010), 562–564 "…a rich collection… Permeable Walls shows that hospital and asylum visiting raises key issues for historians…" – in: Bulletin of the History of Medicine 84/3 (2010), 521–522 "This is a valuable addition to the history of health care." – in: SciTech Book News, September 2009 "Permeable Walls offers a fascinating insight into a new area of medical history. Furthermore, these histories appear to be particularly relevant today at a time when service providers seek ways to involve patients’ representatives in healthcare decision making… relevant as well as emotive." – in: H-Disability, H-Net Reviews, January 2010

Graham Mooney is an assistant professor in the Institute of the History of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University. He has published widely on the history of public health, historical demography and historical epidemiology and is currently writing a book on infectious disease surveillance in Victorian Britain.

Jonathan Reinarz is the director of the Centre for the History of Medicine, University of Birmingham. His research addresses the history of hospitals and medical education, and he also continues to undertake research on the social and economic history of England from 1750 to 1950, with a particular interest in the history of alcohol. He has authored The Birth of a Provincial Hospital: the early years of the General Hospital, Birmingham, 1765-1790 (Stratford-upon-Avon: Dugdale Society, 2003) and edited Medicine and Society in the Midlands: 1750-1950 (Birmingham: Midland History Occasional Publications, 2007). His latest monograph is Health Care in Birmingham: The Birmingham Teaching Hospitals, 1779–1939 (Rochester: Boydell Press, 2009).

SKU	Nicht verfügbar
ISBN 13	9789042025998
ISBN 10	9042025999
Titel	Permeable Walls
Autor	Graham Mooney
Serie	Clio Medica
Buchzustand	Nicht verfügbar
Bindungsart	Hardback
Verlag	Brill
Erscheinungsjahr	2009-01-01
Seitenanzahl	352
Hinweis auf dem Einband	Die Abbildung des Buches dient nur Illustrationszwecken, die tatsächliche Bindung, das Cover und die Auflage können sich davon unterscheiden.