Migraine A History Katherine Foxhall by Katherine Foxhall. 9781421429489, 1421429489 instant download after payment.

A cultural, social, and medical history of migraine.

For
centuries, people have talked of a powerful bodily disorder called
migraine, which currently affects about a billion people around the
world. Yet until now, the rich history of this condition has barely been
told.

InMigraine,
award-winning historian Katherine Foxhall reveals the ideas and methods
that ordinary people and medical professionals have used to describe,
explain, and treat migraine since the Middle Ages. Touching on classical
theories of humoral disturbance and medieval bloodletting, Foxhall also
describes early modern herbal remedies, the emergence of neurology, and
evolving practices of therapeutic experimentation. Throughout the book,
Foxhall persuasively argues that our current knowledge of migraine's
neurobiology is founded on a centuries-long social, cultural, and
medical history. This history, she demonstrates, continues to profoundly
shape our knowledge of this complicated disease, our attitudes toward
people who have migraine, and the sometimes drastic measures that we
take to address pain.

Migraine
is an intimate look at how cultural attitudes and therapeutic practices
have changed radically in response to medical and pharmaceutical
developments. Foxhall draws on a wealth of previously unexamined
sources, including medieval manuscripts, early-modern recipe books,
professional medical journals, hospital case notes, newspaper
advertisements, private diaries, consultation letters, artworks, poetry,
and YouTube videos. Deeply researched and beautifully written, this
fascinating and accessible study of one of our most common,
disabling—and yet often dismissed—disorders will appeal to physicians,
historians, scholars in medical humanities, and people living with
migraine alike.