ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book demonstrates that historians have employed a variety of sources, methods and approaches to reveal the changing manifestations and meanings of an eclectic range of diseases across time and space. It explores inter-related and complex: models, patterns, technologies and narratives have not been mutually exclusive, but have co-constituted contemporary understandings, experiences and consequences of disease. The book addresses some of the deficits in knowledge and methods identified by Rosenberg in 1989, by examining in turn the models, patterns, technologies and narratives of disease that have shaped, and been shaped by, the experiences, beliefs, emotions, norms, values, knowledge, lifestyles, bodies and environments of past and present populations. It suggests ways of reflecting more closely on the everyday experiences of health-care practitioners, patients and families, and on the role of language and ideas in structuring those experiences.
