Introduction
Author
Theodore M. Brown is Professor Emeritus of History and of Medical Humanities at the University of Rochester. His research falls into several areas: the history of U.S. and international public health; the history of U.S. health policy; and the history of mind-body medicine. He is a Contributing Editor (History) of the American Journal of Public Health and Editor of Rochester Studies in Medical History, a book series of the University of Rochester Press. He co-edited and substantially co-authored Making Medical History: The Life and Times of Henry E. Sigerist (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997) and, with Anne-Emanuelle Birn, published an edited collection of essays, Comrades in Health: American Health Internationalists, Abroad and at Home (Rutgers University Press, 2013). He also is a co-author of The Quest for Health Reform: A Satirical History, a history of health reform in the United States as seen in political cartoons (American Public Health Association, 2013). Dr. Brown continues to work on a number of projects, including a co-authored history of the World Health Organization.
Dr. Brown has published and lectured widely on the history of mind-body medicine. His work in this area includes: “Alan Gregg and the Rockefeller Foundation’s Support of Franz Alexander’s Psychosomatic Research” in Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 61 (1987); “Cartesian Dualism and Psychosomatics” in Psychosomatics 30 (1989); “Mental Diseases” in Companion Encyclopedia of the History of Medicine (London: Routledge, 1993); “George Canby Robinson and The Patient as a Person” in Greater Than the Parts: Holism in Biomedicine, 1920–1950 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998); Emotions and Disease (Bethesda, MD: National Library of Medicine, 1997); “The Rise and Fall of American Psychosomatic Medicine,” talk at New York Academy of Medicine, November 29, 2000; and “George Engel and Rochester’s Biopsychosocial Tradition: Historical and Developmental Perspectives” in The Biopsychosocial Perspective: Past, Present, Future (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2003).
Suggested Use
The Changing Explanations in Mind-Body Medicine class resource can be used to support undergraduate classes in the history of medicine, in intellectual and cultural history, and in the history of philosophy. It can also be used in conjunction with courses on medicine in literature. Courses in the history of medicine can incorporate all or parts of this class resource in their lectures and class discussions. Because the mind-body theme is often neglected in most medical history courses, much of this material would be supplementary or complementary to other course materials. For courses in intellectual and cultural history and on medicine in literature, the emphasis could be placed on the medical contexts in which familiar mind-body themes also appeared. The bibliography provided in Lesson 6 offers further readings on a variety of topics for the interested student or teacher, as well as background sources for the suggested projects and paper topics.