Health Culture in the Heartland, 1880-1980

This history of health, illness, and medical care in one downstate Illinois county offers a richly detailed account, spanning more than a century of health care, from the perspectives of county residents, nurses, doctors, and public health professionals. Drawing on a wealth of oral history interviews, hospital records, and other primary documents, Lucinda McCray Beier provides insight into home management of ill-health, birth, and death; nurses' training and practices; the experiences of African American healers and patients; public health provision; and other topics. By observing the history of medicine and public health through the eyes of practitioners and laypeople over an extended period in a Midwestern county, this volume offers insight into broad American experience as well as an important counterweight to metropolitan-oriented, physician-centered studies.