The history of medicine: a Scottish perspective

Introduction

This unit presents information about how Scottish healthcare institutions were influenced by the underlying social, economic, political and cultural contexts.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a series of innovative models of the body was produced, from the mechanical to the mathematical to the sensible. As groundbreaking anatomical investigation and physiological experimentation were carried out, the map of the body changed, and different parts (vessels, glands, nerves) acquired visibility and became the focus of much research.

This unit is an adapted extract from the Open University course Medicine and society in Europe 1500-1930 (A218). [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)]