Charles E. Rosenberg and the Multifaceted Promise of Medical History

Charles E. Rosenberg has had a major influence in defining the history of medicine as a field. However, critics who focus on his leadership or “school” in terms of defined scholarly perspectives, including those of social history and the framing of disease, offer inadequate descriptions of the messages, breadth, and scope of his scholarly work as a whole. Shoehorning the history of medicine into prescribed patterns in order to build a more unitary discipline would weaken rather than strengthen the field and is not in the Rosenberg tradition.