[Reflections on health care: hypes as a valve mechanism of the health care system].

Physicians and other health care workers sometimes face thoughts and systems that are utterly strange to them. This articles argues that 'medical hypes' deserve to be taken seriously, because they contribute to keeping the health care system and society at large vital.

Leprosy and the Colonial Gaze: Comparing the Dutch West and East Indies, 1750-1950.

This article is looking at colonial governance with regard to leprosy, comparing two settings of the Dutch colonial empire: Suriname and the Dutch East Indies. Whereas segregation became formal policy in Suriname, leprosy sufferers were hardly ever segregated in the Dutch East Indies. We argue that the perceived needs to maintain a healthy labour force and to prevent contamination of white populations were the driving forces behind the difference in response to the disease.

The role of the patient in patient safety: What can we learn from healthcare's history?

Many nations, healthcare organizations and interest groups are addressing the question of how patients can best be involved in designing and executing patient safety policy. Looking back at how patient engagement has developed in healthcare, we can draw lessons on how to engage patients in patient safety.

[Physician and autonomy: on time perception and job satisfaction].

Is it true that haste is sneaking into medicine? In this article, it is argued that it mainly concerns the perception of being rushed, which is caused by a loss of autonomy of the modern physician. In the fifties, physicians were busy as well, but because they enjoyed a greater degree of autonomy compared to their contemporary colleagues, they did not experience this in a negative way. Due to increased bureaucracy and the introduction of market dynamics, the medical profession has lost autonomy, which in turn led to a loss of job satisfaction.

[David Sackett and 25 years of evidence-based medicine: person and the context].

David Sackett, the father of evidence-based medicine (EBM), died recently - exactly 25 years after the term EBM was coined. This coincidence calls for reflection on the historical significance of EBM and on Sackett's role. The rise of EBM appears to be part of a much broader development: a shift from 'trust in the experts' to 'trust in numbers' that occurred under the pressures of the socio-political conditions of the late twentieth century.

[Smoking in a risk society: 50 years after the Surgeon General's report].

Exactly 50 years ago, the U.S. Surgeon General explicitly warned about health damage caused by cigarette smoking.

The dialectics of understanding: on genres and the use of debate in medical history.

Answering the call made by Frederic L. Holmes to introduce the concept of the longue durée in the history of science and medicine, this essay sets out to weigh the pros and cons of the concept for the field. It argues that four genres (or traditions) can be distinguished in medical historiography, each with their own ambitions, methods, perspectives and audiences.

Itinerant dentists and patent remedies in the Dutch Republic.

This chapter describes the rise of dentistry in terms of the interaction between a changing medical rhetoric and a marketplace under pressure. During the second half of the eighteenth century, physicians began to take an active interest in surgery. In the corporate health care system of the Dutch Republic, this had far-reaching consequences for itinerant medical practitioners.

[Images of patients in a modernising society: the Netherlands, 1880-1920].

In this essay it is argued that advertisements for medicines in the lay press constitute an important source for the patient in medical history. At first sight, advertisements only seem to document the supply side of the medical market. However, the image of the proactive manufacturer offering his goods to passive consumers is a misleading one.