Main description:

With Americans paying more than $200 billion each year for prescription pills, the pharmaceutical business is the most profitable in the nation. The popularity of prescription drugs in recent decades has remade the doctor/patient relationship, instituting prescription-writing and pill-taking as an integral part of medical practice and everyday life.

Medicating Modern America examines the meanings behind this pharmaceutical revolution through the interconnected histories of eight of the most influential and important drugs: antibiotics, mood stabilizers, hormone replacement therapy, oral contraceptives, tranquilizers, stimulants, statins, and Viagra. All of these drugs have been popular, profitable, influential, and controversial, and the authors take a historical approach to studying their development, prescription, and consumption. This perspective locates the histories of prescription medicines in specific cultural contexts while revealing the extent to which contemporary debates about pharmaceutical drugs echo concerns voiced by Americans in the past.

Exploring the rich and multi-faceted history of pharmaceutical drugs in the United States, Medicating Modern America unveils the untold stories behind America's pharmaceutical obsession.

Contributors include: Robert Bud, Jennifer R. Fishman, Jeremy A. Greene, David Healy, Suzanne White Junod, Ilina Singh, Andrea Tone, and Elizabeth Siegel Watkins.

Contents:

Introduction Andrea Tone and Elizabeth Siegel WatkinsPart I1. Antibiotics From Germophobia to the Carefree Life and Back Again: The Lifecycle of the Antibiotic BrandRobert Bud2. Mood Stabilizers Folie to Folly: The Modern Mania for Bipolar Disorders and Mood StabilizersDavid Healy3. Hormone Replacement "Educate Yourself": Consumer Information about Menopause and Hormone Replacement TherapyElizabeth Siegel WatkinsPart II4. Oral Contraceptives Women over Who Smoke: A Case Study in Risk Management and Risk Communications, 1960-1989Suzanne WhiteJunod5. Stimulants Not Just Naughty: Years of Stimulant Drug AdvertisingIlina Singh6. Tranquilizers Tranquilizers on Trial: Psychopharmacology in the Age of AnxietyAndrea TonePart III7. Statins The Abnormal and the Pathological: Cholesterol, Statins, and the Threshold of DiseaseJeremy A. Greene8. Viagra Making Viagra: From Impotence to Erectile DysfunctionJennifer R. FishmanAbout the Contributors Index