The Word As Scalpel: A History of Medical Sociology

leondumoulin.nl: The Word As Scalpel: A History of Medical Sociology: Samuel W. Bloom.
Table of contents

Its closest relationships in medicine were with psychiatry, which recognized the importance of social factors in mental illness during World War II. Federal government research agencies played a key role in the development of medical sociology, especially the National Institute of Mental Health NIMH , created in The NIMH grouped sociology, anthropology, and social psychology into the "behavioral sciences" p.

See a Problem?

It funded social science research training and much research, including the Midtown Manhattan study of the epidemiology of mental illness. The private foundations that supported research in medical sociology included the Commonwealth Fund, the Milbank Memorial Fund, the Rockefeller Foundation, and especially the Russell Sage Foundation. They funded and provided intellectual leadership for the well-known studies of comprehensive care, socialization of medical students, and innovations in medical education.

After , the foundations turned to economic and political issues of health policy.

The Section on Medical Sociology of the American Sociological Association functioned for many years as the field's professional society. The semiautonomous section included anthropologists, physicians, psychologists, and social workers, and contributed to the success of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior.

Health & Medicine: Crash Course Sociology #42

Over time, medical sociology moved away from psychiatry and closer to public health and preventive medicine in issues such as access to and quality of care. Since , medical sociology has existed primarily in sociology departments and a few multidisciplinary centers of health services research. Federal funding for training and research has declined with the emphasis on biological mechanisms of disease.


  1. The Word as Scalpel: A History of Medical Sociology by Samuel W. Bloom.
  2. Give Me A Cowboy.
  3. Gaming Cultures and Place in Asia-Pacific (Routledge Studies in New Media and Cyberculture).
  4. .

Bloom concludes that medical sociologists remain "outsiders" p. This reviewer, a sociologist, believes that the formative research in medical sociology occurred in social epidemiology. Early twentieth-century researchers such as Louis Dublin and Robert M.

Woodbury identified and examined social factors related to health and disease, using testable models and quantitative methods. Most of the medical sociologists described by Bloom adopted the social factors but rejected social epidemiology and its methods.

Additional Information

Because of their commitment to structural-functionalism, their analyses idealized physicians and their research methods were unscientific and subjective. In addition, their anxieties about being accepted by medical schools led them to ignore studies by Oliver Garceau and others that described the self-serving actions of medical societies and medical schools. As a result, much of their research was one-sided and suggested that medical sociologists were not capable of studying health policy [End Page ] objectively.

Bloom's references omit important recent scholarship. In short, this is a history of a particular school of medical sociology that Bloom is instructive on how the early fertile research collaboration between sociology and psychiatry withered with the advance of new pharmacological treatments but is a less valuable guide to more recent puzzling failures of sociological influence: There is more to be written here from the perspective of the sociology of scientific knowledge. But it would be wholly inappropriate to end this review on a critical note.

In what has clearly been a labour of love, Sam Bloom has done a great deal of original research both in archives and in interviews with key figures in the emergence of the subdiscipline. The book will remain the essential historical resource on this topic, and his fellow medical sociologists owe Bloom a debt of gratitude. Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.

Project MUSE - The Word as Scalpel: A History of Medical Sociology (review)

It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Sign In or Create an Account. Close mobile search navigation Article navigation. The Word as Scalpel: Email alerts New issue alert.

The Word as Scalpel: A History of Medical Sociology

Receive exclusive offers and updates from Oxford Academic. Related articles in Google Scholar.


  • .
  • The Word as Scalpel: A History of Medical Sociology - Samuel William Bloom - Google Книги;
  • .
  • Knitting Pattern - KP159 - baby poncho 4 sizes.
  • The Espionage Game.
  • Faith & Fundamentals For Living a Healthy, Christian Life.

    • Citing articles via Google Scholar.