Consists partly of revised versions of papers originally presented at a conference held in 1988 at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, organized by the Francis C. Wood Institute for the History of Medicine

From Bright's disease to end-stage renal disease -- Emergence of rheumatic fever in the nineteenth century -- Parasites and the Germ theory of disease -- Definite and material: Coronary thrombosis and cardiologists in the 1920s -- The medicalization of suicide in England: Laymen, Physicians, and cultural change, 1500-1870 -- American physicians' "Discovery" of homosexuals, 1880-1900: a new diagnosis in a changing society -- From psychiatric syndrome to "Communicable" disease: the case of anorexia nervosa -- From myalgic encephalitis to Yuppie flu: a history of chronic fatigue syndromes -- The illusion of medical certainty: Silicosis and the politics of industrial disability, 1930-1960 -- The legal art of psychiatric diagnosis: searching for reliability -- Quid pro Quo in chronic illness: Tuberculosis in Pennslyvania 1876-1926 -- Stories of epilepsy, 1880-1930 -- The sick poor and the state: Arthur Newsholme on poverty, disease, and the responsibility -- Henry E. Sigerist: His interpretations of the history of disease and the future of medicine