Meet Us in Chicago: American Association for the History of Medicine

By Jacqueline C. Wehmueller At Johns Hopkins Press we get a kick from communicating with authors and readers via Twitter and other social media platforms. We can now share good news immediately: “Nicolas Rasmussen’s Gene Jockeys reviewed in Nature!” “Book TV interviewing Margaret Humphrey about Marrow of Tragedy!” Social media has its limitations, of course, and it’s always a pleasure to anticipate meeting in person with the authors and readers of our books. At this year’s gathering of the American Association for the History of Medicine in Chicago, we look forward to sharing ideas about the history of medicine, book writing, the publishing industry—and the effects of social media on all of the above. Please join us as we preview outstanding new books along with classics and Johns Hopkins favorites in the history of medicine. The Press continues its venerable tradition of publishing book-length explorations of new topics and innovative approaches to topics thought more familiar. Our new books include a political history of Pain by Keith Wailoo, Renée Fox’s participant-observer history of Doctors Without Borders, and George Weisz’s analysis of the multiple purposes served by the concept of Chronic Disease. Medical historians and their books help make sense of the fact that “disease we have always had with us,” to quote Charles E. Rosenberg. Rosenberg is the editor of the Press’s popular Johns Hopkins Biographies of Disease series , whose new and forthcoming titles explore anxiety, PKU, osteoporosis, fever, and autoimmunity. Here’s an embraceable concept in a social media-mediated, internet world: “Of making many books there is no end.” The biblical quote reminds me to mention Medicine and Religion, Gary Ferngren’s astonishing narration of the interplay between these two major forces through history.

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AAHM Featured New Titles and Book Signings:  Schizophrenia: A Brother Finds Answers in Biological Science, by Ronald Chase A Chosen Calling: Jews in Science in the Twentieth Century, by Noah J. Efron Medicine and Religion: A Historical Introduction, by Gary B. Ferngren

Doctors Without Borders: Humanitarian Quests, Impossible Dreams of Médecins Sans Frontières, by Renée C. Fox

Aging Bones: A Short History of Osteoporosis, by Gerald N. Grob

Mental Health Issues and the University Student, by Doris Iarovici, M.D.

Dealing with Darwin: Place, Politics, and Rhetoric in Religious Engagements with Evolution, by David N. Livingstone

Social Networks and Popular Understanding of Science and Health: Sharing Disparities, by Brian G. Southwell

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Book Signing: Friday, May 9, 3:00 – 3:30 p.m. (Grand Ballroom 5-6) Margaret Humphreys Marrow of Tragedy: The Health Crisis of the American Civil War $20.00, tax included “A consistently engaging overview of Civil War medicine in its every aspect. Based on careful research and mastery of an abundant literature, Marrow of Tragedy provides a powerful depiction of a subject revealing of a dynamic and increasingly complex American society.”—Charles Rosenberg George Weisz Chronic Disease in the Twentieth Century: A History $18.00, tax included “A highly original argument that will greatly enrich our historical understanding of chronic disease and the medical, public health, and policy response to it. It will also contribute to an understanding of the peculiarities of American health care and health care politics, and the relatively minimal success of health care reform.”—Jesse F. Ballenger

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Book Signing: Saturday, May 10, 10:00 – 10:30 a.m. (Grand Ballroom 5-6) Diane Paul The PKU Paradox: A Short History of a Genetic Disease $15.00, tax included “An extremely worthwhile, interesting, and very readable book. I highly recommend it to geneticists, bioethicists, to those directly or indirectly involved in newborn screening, and to all others who wish to understand the basis for the current enthusiasm about the role of genetics and genetic screening in health and the prevention of disease.”—Harvey L. Levy, Journal of Medical Genetics James Mohr Licensed to Practice: The Supreme Court Defines the American Medical Profession $13.00, tax included “Massively evocative and filled with palace intrigue and scheming worthy of Henry II . . . To learn the fascinating details I refer you wholeheartedly to this marvelous depiction.”—Howard Wainer, Journal of Medical Regulation  

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Book Signing: Saturday, May 10, 3:00 – 3:30 p.m. (Grand Ballroom 5-6) Keith Wailoo Pain: A Political History $18.00, tax included “At once capacious and focused, Pain expands on the cultural histories of this compelling topic by admirably developing the political construction of the elusive and yet ever-so-material experience of pain.”—Rosemarie Garland-Thomson   Nicolas Rasmussen Gene Jockeys: Life Science and the Rise of Biotech Enterprise $20.00, tax included “Biologist and science historian Nicolas Rasmussen delicately unravels the tangled fibres of discovery, entrepreneurship and lab life in the first decades of genetic engineering . . . An engaging, ultimately elegiac tale of lost innocence, as researchers struggle with the angel of the search for truth on one shoulder, and the devil of wealth and fame on the other.”—Nathaniel Comfort, Nature

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Forthcoming in Fall 2014:

Intolerant Bodies: A Short History of Autoimmunity, by Warwick Anderson and Ian R. Mackay

Creationism in Europe, edited by Stefaan Blancke, Hans Henrik Hjermitslev, and Peter C. Kjærgaard; foreword by Ronald L. Numbers

Cold War, Deadly Fevers: Malaria Eradication in Mexico, 1955–1975, by Marcos Cueto (forthcoming in paperback)

Generic: The Unbranding of Modern Medicine, by Jeremy A. Greene

More Than Hot: A Short History of Fever, by Christopher Hamlin

Broken Hearts: The Tangled History of Cardiac Care, by David S. Jones (forthcoming in paperback)

Pathologist of the Mind: Adolf Meyer and the Origins of American Psychiatry, by S. D. Lamb

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Executive Editor Jacqueline C. Wehmueller acquires books in the history of medicine, consumer health, and psychology and psychiatry for the JHU Press; follow her on Twitter at @EditorJackieW. In Chicago, meet the  JHU Press at our space in the Renaissance Chicago Grand Ballroom 5-6. Use the AAHM discount code HEYR to receive a 30% discount on all books featured in this blog post or mention this code when calling in your order at 1-800-537-5487. Find subscription information for the Bulletin of the History of Medicine; check out the AAHM Conference Blog and AAHM on Twitter; read more about the AAHM Annual Meeting; and/or follow the JHU Press on Facebook and Twitter.