The Physical and the Moral by Elizabeth A. Williams - 9780521524629

The Physical and the MoralAnthropology, Physiology, and Philosophical Medicine in France, 17501850\nAuthor(s): Elizabeth A. Williams\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom\nImprint: Cambridge University Press\nISBN-13: 9780521524629, 978-0521524629\nSynopsis\nThis book explores the tradition of the 'science of man' in French medicine of the era [tel], focusing on controversies about the nature of the 'physical-moral' relation and their effects on the role of medicine in French society. Its chief purpose is to recover the history of a holistic tradition in French medicine that has been neglected because it lay outside the mainstream themes of modern medicine, which include experimental, reductionist, and localistic conceptions of health and disease. Professor Williams also challenges existing historiography, which argues that the 'anthropological' approach to medicine was a short-term by-product of the leftist politics of the French Revolution. This .