The Development of Modern medicine in Non-Western Countries

The Development of Modern medicine in Non-Western Countries
Hormoz Ebrahimnejad (Routledge, 2008)
ISBN: 9780415447423

Through essays and case studies of medical modernization, this volume particularly calls into question the categorization of ‘Western’ and ‘non-Western’ medicine and challenges the idea that modern medicine could only be developed in its Western birthplace and then imported to and practised as such to the rest of the world. Against a concept of a ‘project’ of modernization at the heart of the history of modern medicine in non-Western countries, the chapters of this book describe ‘processes’ of medical development by highlighting the active involvement of local elements. The book’s emphasis is thus on the ‘modernization’ or ‘construction’ of modern medicine rather than on the diffusion of ‘modern medecine’ as an ontological entity beyond the West.