San Antonio College Library

Society was not prepared in 1981 for the appearance of a new infectious disease, but we have since learned that emerging and reemerging diseases will continue to challenge humanity. This work is the first history of HIV/AIDS written for a general audience that emphasizes the medical response to the epidemic. The author, a medical historian approaches the AIDS virus from philosophical and intellectual perspectives in the history of medical science,...

"Noboru Hirota has produced a major historical analysis of how the field of chemistry has evolved over centuries. Spanning more than eight hundred pages, this book presents an exhaustive study of the field, showing how ground-breaking discoveries were made and innovative theories were constructed, with personal portrayals and interesting anecdotes of pioneering scholars. Positioning chemistry carefully within the natural sciences, the author rejects...

"Polio, with its haunting images of disabled children and the iron lung, was one of the iconic diseases of the 20th century. In the 1950s, only the atomic bomb frightened Americans more than this debilitating scourge which could break into any home and paralyse or kill a healthy child. Now, vaccination has pushed polio to the brink of extinction - but its complete eradication may still elude us. Mankind's struggle to defeat polio was one of the grand...

Covers events, ideas, and personalities of the six decades since the end of the First World War.

"Electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT, has in the last thirty years been considered a method of last resort in the treatment of debilitating depression, suicidal ideation, and other forms of mental illness. Yet, ironically, its effectiveness in treating these patients would suggest it as a frontline therapy, bringing relief from acute symptoms and saving lives. In this book, Edward Shorter and David Healy trace the controversial history of ECT and other...

"Allergy is a modern malady. A century ago, even the term allergy was unknown, and ailments such as asthma and eczema were considered to be rare and non-fatal conditions that afflicted only the upper classes of Western society. Yet, as Mark Jackson reveals in this ground-breaking book, by the 1990s allergy had exploded into a set of diseases of great medical, cultural and political significance." "In Allergy, Jackson traces how allergy became the...

A comprehensive history of psychotherapy in the United States outlines the ways in which Freud's theories are profoundly influencing mental health in America, in a chronicle that also covers such topics as psychosurgery, Gestalt therapy, and psychopharmacology.

An alternative history of the work of Freud and his supporters traces the development of psychoanalysis in Europe, placing the movement's origins against a backdrop of the nineteenth century while profiling Freud as a creative, interdisciplinary thinker.

"In this book, Jerome Kagan melds the history of the field of psychology during the past fifty years with the story of his own research efforts of the same period and an analysis of what he terms "the currently rocky romance between psychology and biology." As Kagan unwinds his own history, he reveals the seminal events that have shaped his career and discusses how his assumptions have changed. With full appreciation for the contributions to psychology...