Business of Health

<p>This book offers a discussion about the dramatic development of healthcare business around the world during the twentieth century. Through a broad range of cases in Asia Europe and the US it shows how health was transformed into a fast-growing and diversified industry. </p><p>Health and medicine have developed as one of the fastest growing sectors of the economy around the world during the twentieth century. However very little is known about the conditions of their transformation in a big globalized business. This book discusses the development of health industries tackling the various activities in manufacturing (drugs biotechnology medical devices etc.) infrastructure (hospital design and construction) and services (nursing care insurances hospital management etc.) in relation to healthcare. The business history of health carried out in this book offers a systemic perspective that includes the producers (companies) practitioners (medical doctors) and users (patients and hospitals) of medical technology as well as the providers of capital and the bodies responsible for regulating the health system (government). </p><p>The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal <i>Business History</i>.</p>