Historians of Medicine & Health at Tel Aviv University

Medicine is the most practical of sciences. What medical experts think and do have a direct impact on everybody’s wellbeing. Medicine, more than other sciences, is also embedded in social, cultural, and political realities. These realities, even if ostensibly not directly related to health, affect the health of the population, past and present, the structure of health services and the distribution of health resources between different groups. Furthermore, medicine is always in the public eye and always part of the “public interest”. Somebody – rulers, physicians, scholars, or patients – has always tried to determine who is a respectable healer and who is a quack, what methods are acceptable, and whose practices and underlying ideas are suspicious or dangerous to the public.

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We are a group of scholars at the Yavetz School of Historical Studies at Tel Aviv University committed to understanding the many and complex nuances in which medicine and health have operated and still operate in various historical situations. Together we study and teach about Europe, the Middle East, China, and Japan, from the Middle Ages to the 21st century. We strongly believe that exploring the past helps us to understand how our current reality has taken shape and enables us to rethink choices and preferences. If there is a lesson from history, it is that nothing is inevitable.

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