| Popis: |
Physicians have been getting paid for thousands of years, yet commercial practices are rarely mentioned in works of medical history. Major themes of the study are outlined in the first chapter, suggesting why a long-term international perspective is required. Demographic transition, the industrial revolution, and scientific advances brought wealth, longevity, and faith in technological progress. Advances in clinical therapeutics, accompanied by the development of national political, professional, and financial institutions, led to a modern 20th-century transformation of medicine. Chapters 2 through 12, briefly introduced here, present data and narrative to support a budgetary perspective on the evolution of national health expenditures. |
