Charles Webster

In recent years the study of nursing history in Britain has been transformed by the application of concepts and methods from the social sciences to original sources. The myths and legends which have grown up through a century of anecdotal writing have been chipped away to reveal the complex story of an occupation shaped and reshaped by social and technological change. Most of the work has been scattered in monographs, journals and edited collections. The skills of a social historian, a sociologist and a graduate nurse have been brought together to rethink the history of modern nursing in the light of the latest scholarship. The account starts by looking at the type of nursing care available in 1800. This was usually provided by the sick person's family or household servants. It traces the interdependent growth of general nursing and the modern hospital and examines the separate origins and eventual integration of mental nursing, district nursing, health visiting and midwifery. It concludes with reflections on the prospects for nursing in the year 2000.

"The 2013 digitization of the vast Hartlib Papers archive highlighted the pressing need for a comprehensive modern study of Samuel Hartlib (1600-1662), a central figure in seventeenth-century intellectual life. Though educated in Eastern Europe, Hartlib spent his adult life in London, where he became a prolific correspondent and chronicler. His Ephemerides, spanning 1634 to 1660, and his extensive correspondence with leading thinkers across Britain and Protestant Europe offer an unparalleled window into the era's religious, political, and scientific ferment. This volume goes beyond previous studies in both scope and depth, drawing extensively on archival sources and offering new interpretations of Hartlib's network and influence. Organized chronologically, it explores the wide-ranging social, economic, and ideological pursuits of Hartlib and his collaborators-many of them renowned figures in their own right-and his close alignment with the Cromwellian cause. Providing the most complete portrait to date of the Hartlib circle's emergence and impact, this study sets a new benchmark for scholarship and invites renewed engagement with one of the early modern period's most visionary projects of knowledge, reform, and communication."--Publisher's website.

This OPUS looks at the political decisions surrounding the foundation of the NHS on 5 July 1948 and the purpose which it was intended to serve.

This is a history of general practice under the National Health Service, covering the whole of the first 50 years, from 1948 to the present.

The authors describe different historical aspects of the interrelationship of technical experience and social policy in the fields of health, education and social welfare.

This text considers the historical development of health care from 1500 to the present day. The editor adopts a broad interdisciplinary framework to draw on the most recent research in the fields of medical and social history.

xii, 332 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : 23 cm