本書麵嚮的是這樣一些讀者：他們初次與醫學史相遇，希望能有一本入門性質的介紹。 醫學史就是醫學史傢動筆寫下的事。在接下來的部分裏，我要試著去解釋醫學史傢們以前做過什麼、現在又在做什麼。描述他們這些工作的時候，隱含地帶齣的問題便是哪些事情他們還沒有做，或者沒有做完，或者做得不夠完美，因為他們的確把許許多多機會留給瞭未來。

我要試著說明為什麼研究醫學史很重要。我還想要解釋為什麼這樣多的人醉心於醫學史，為什麼這一領域發展得如此迅速。人們發現，對健康和衛生保健的昔日有所瞭解竟是這樣的樂事，其樂趣體現在各種不同的層次上。不過我要有言在先，我們這本書裏主要涉及的還不是醫學史傢們得到的答案，而是他們提齣的問題。

John C. Burnham;

B.A., Stanford University, 1951; M.A., University of Wisconsin, 1952; Ph.D., Stanford University, 1958.

Professor Burnham specializes in the history of medicine and American social history; his particular interest is the history of psychiatry. His recent books include How Superstition Won and Science Lost: Popularizing Science and Health in the United States (1987), Paths into American Culture: Psychology, Medicine, and Morals (1988), Bad Habits: Drinking, Smoking, Taking Drugs, Gambling, Sexual Misbehavior, and Swearing in American History (1993) and How the Idea of Profession Changed the Writing of Medical History (1998), and What Is Medical History? (2005). Dr. Burnham is presently studying the impact of Freud on the Western world, and also the deinstitutionalization of mental patients in the 1950s.

Professor Burnham has taught at Stanford and the Claremont Colleges, and he has been a Fulbright Senior Lecturer in Australia at the Universities of Melbourne, Tasmania, and New England. He has also served as the Tallman Visiting Professor at Bowdoin College. In 2002-2003, he was a visiting fellow at Robinson College in the University of Cambridge. He has served as President of the American Association for the History of Medicine and has held many other offices in scholarly organizations both in the United States and abroad, and he is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.