Early Modern Illnesses and Treatments
Surgeries, Deformities and Disease

Changing Medical Thought

This website introduces a range of readers—students, teachers, the general public—to understandings of the body and medicine in Europe from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. It focuses on common conditions that we would now identify as breast cancer, kidney stones, measles, small pox, hydrocephalus, rickets, and complicated pregnancy. Though primarily concerned with presenting concise and compelling accounts of the past, along with important medical images, this educational site also encourages readers both to historicize and think more critically about current conceptions of the body and illness.

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