History and Health Science: Medical Advances across the Disciplines

Many of the most influential works about the history of human health written by historians and scientists within the last twenty-five years, though different in both provenance and emphasis, are remarkably similar in their methodologies and frameworks. As a result, they often show their age in similar ways. In the light of advances in molecular evidence and the science of immunology, no individual work in the medical-history canon, whether by a scientist or a historian, should be accepted uncritically. Successful medical histories in the future will be those that take full account of all technical innovations.