As the slave trade brought Europeans, Africans, and Americans into contact, diseases were traded along with human lives. Manuel Barcia examines the battle waged against disease, where traders fought against loss of profits while enslaved Africans fou...

What common condition can be treated with cow dung? How do crushed oystershells ease heartburn? Can eels cure deafness? And how do you stop a stubborn case of the hiccups? If someone was struck down by illness or injury in the late eighteenth century...

At the dawn of the twenty-first century, we have become accustomed to medical breakthroughs and conditioned to assume that, regardless of illnesses, doctors almost certainly will be able to help – not just by diagnosing us and alleviating our pain, b...