From: ACADEMIC EARTH on Wed, May 25 2011 12:46 AM

The form of medicine that arose in fifth-century Greece, associated with the name of Hippocrates and later popularized by Galen, marked a major innovation in the treatment of disease. Unlike supernatural theories of disease, Hippocrates' method involved seeking the causes of illness in natu...

From: ACADEMIC EARTH on Wed, May 25 2011 12:46 AM

Professor Freeman discusses the mounting tensions between the colonists and the British in the late 1760s and early 1770s. The Virginia Resolves were published and read throughout the colonies in 1765, and generated discussion about colonial rights and liberties. Colonies began working together ...

From: ACADEMIC EARTH on Wed, May 25 2011 12:46 AM

Epidemics, or high-impact infectious diseases, have had an historical impact equal to that of wars, revolutions and economic crises. This course looks at the various ways in which these diseases have affected societies in Europe and North America from 1600 to the present. Contrary to optimistic ...

From: ACADEMIC EARTH on Wed, May 25 2011 12:46 AM

In the last decade of the nineteenth century, malariology emerged as the most prestigious and intellectually exciting field in the new discipline of tropical medicine. The disease’s complexity and resistance to conventional public health strategies posed a major challenge to doctors and scientis...

From: ACADEMIC EARTH on Wed, May 25 2011 12:46 AM

In this lecture, Professor Freeman discusses how the new nation moved towards creating a stronger, more centralized national government than the Articles of Confederation. Complications of commerce between individual states - a factor that wasn’t regulated by the Articles - led to a series of in...

From: ACADEMIC EARTH on Wed, May 25 2011 12:46 AM

Reliable records of influenza, dating back to the 1700s, suggest a pattern of one major pandemic every century. Among the pandemics for which there is solid documentary evidence, the outbreak of 1918-1920 is by far the greatest. The so-called Spanish Lady caused somewhere between 25 and 100 mill...

From: ACADEMIC EARTH on Wed, May 25 2011 12:46 AM

Professor Freeman discusses what it meant to be a British colonist in America in the eighteenth century. She explains how American colonists had deep bonds of tradition and culture with Great Britain. She argues that, as British colonists with a strong sense of their British liberties, settlers ...

From: ACADEMIC EARTH on Wed, May 25 2011 12:46 AM

John Stuart Mill’s synthesis rights and utility follows naturally in the vein of neoclassical utilitarianism, and it attempts to compensate for many of the shortcomings of Bentham's classical utilitarianism. In the end, it turns out to be a doctrine that does not look very similar to Bentha...

From: ACADEMIC EARTH on Wed, May 25 2011 12:46 AM

Exploitation is an important technical--not normative--concept in the theory of Karl Marx. Although we are dealing with voluntary Pareto transactions, under capitalism, exploitation occurs whether or not an individual is better off. Capitalism is destined to fail, says Marx, because of (1) the p...

From: ACADEMIC EARTH on Wed, May 25 2011 12:46 AM

Professor Freeman discusses when we can consider a revolution to have ended, arguing that a revolution is finally complete when a new political regime gains general acceptance throughout society - and that, for this reason, it is the American citizenry who truly decided the fate and trajectory o...

From: ACADEMIC EARTH on Wed, May 25 2011 12:46 AM

Professor Freeman concludes her discussion (from the previous lecture) of the three early instances in which the American colonies joined together to form a union. She then turns to a discussion of the Stamp Act crisis, and how American colonists found a shared bond through their dissatisfaction...

From: ACADEMIC EARTH on Wed, May 25 2011 12:46 AM

Today, Professor Shapiro continues his discussion of Enlightenment theory of Karl Marx, focusing on the foundations of his theory of capitalism. The central question is, how is wealth created under capitalism at the micro level? For Marx, Adam Smith’s invisible hand is not entirely benevolent. H...

From: ACADEMIC EARTH on Wed, May 25 2011 12:46 AM

The cultural transition from the romantic era of consumption to the era of tuberculosis derived not only from the germ theory of disease and the triumph of contagionism over anticontagionism, but also from political considerations. Worries over population decline and growing working-class milita...

From: ACADEMIC EARTH on Wed, May 25 2011 12:46 AM

Although the development of the germ theory of disease in the latter half of the nineteenth century marks a major revolution in medical science, comparable to the discoveries of Galileo in astronomy or Darwin in biology, it cannot be reduced to the heroic efforts of a single researcher or group ...

From: ACADEMIC EARTH on Wed, May 25 2011 12:46 AM

Professor Freeman discusses the debate over the Constitution at the Federal Convention of 1787 - a convention that by no means had an inevitable outcome. Indeed, even attending the Convention at all was a subject of debate in the individual states; many people feared that the Convention would pr...

From: ACADEMIC EARTH on Wed, May 25 2011 12:46 AM

Professor Freeman discusses the national debate over the proposed Constitution, arguing that in many ways, when Americans debated its ratification, they were debating the consequences and meaning of the Revolution. Some feared that a stronger, more centralized government would trample on the rig...

From: ACADEMIC EARTH on Wed, May 25 2011 12:46 AM

Although the harm principle as introduced in the last lecture seems straightforward at first glance, today Professor Shapiro discusses its ambiguities. If it "must be calculated to produce evil to someone else," who will be doing the calculations? Second, what does "calculated" mean? Does commit...

From: ACADEMIC EARTH on Wed, May 25 2011 12:46 AM

In this lecture, Professor Freeman discusses the experiences of African Americans, women, and Native Americans during the Revolution, framing her discussion within a larger historical debate over whether or not the Revolution was "radical." Freeman ultimately concludes that while white American ...

From: ACADEMIC EARTH on Wed, May 25 2011 12:46 AM

Of all the diseases studied in this course, malaria has been responsible for the most human suffering. It has evolved alongside humans, and impacted human biology as well as civilization. In the former case, this impact is evident in genetic diseases like sickle-cell anemia which, while increasi...

From: ACADEMIC EARTH on Wed, May 25 2011 12:46 AM

The sub-discipline of tropical medicine furnishes a clear example of the socially constructed character of medical knowledge. Tropical diseases first enter medical discourse as a unique conceptual field and topic for specialization at the end of the 19th century, and the heyday of tropical medic...