In recent decades, the history of medicine has undergone deep transformations. Until the 1950s, a certain “whiggish” point of view was hegemonic in the field. According to that vision, medical knowledge and practices evolved in a linear fashion, with the endpoint being the inevitable triumph of science over the evil forces of ignorance and superstition. Since the 1960s, in part under the influence of Michel Foucault’s works, a new historiography emerged that emphasized the disciplinary character of the “clinical glance” and of the “medicalization of societies” that took place toward the end of the nineteenth century. The medical profession, and more generally the practice of medicine, were crucial components of the broader apparatus of social discipline that emerged together with modern capitalism. This vision has been complemented most recently by newer approaches that place the focus more on the ambiguities and problematic aspects in the development and professionalization of medicine...

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